Zombie properties and beggared homeowners waiting for their houses to be rebuilt or torn down continue to be rude reminders of Hurricane Sandy’s devilish toll in Sheepshead Bay — one of the communities the ghoulish nor’easter battered in 24 states and seven nations around Halloween 2012.
“It’s a community in transition with people living in suspended animation,” says Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City program coordinator Laura McKenna, who tries to minimize their financial distress with free workshops on foreclosure, flood insurance, bill reduction, and psychological coping skills.
Experts warn that rising sea levels will make our coastal communities more vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, making McKenna’s work even more critical.
“My major mission is to reach out and make sure people know that resources are available to them,” says the Brooklyn Heights resident who fell in love with Sheepshead Bay after performing with her band at Bayfest in 2005.
The saxophonist joined the Bay Improvement Group and began participating in clean-ups and spring plantings.
“It’s a great community,” she says. “These are people with a lot of heart.”
The same can be said of her. The good Samaritan rushed to help after Hurricane Sandy turned bay businesses and homes into bathtubs and drowned a senior in his apartment. She was among the first waves of responders — before even official aid workers arrived — helping to commandeer supplies, recruit other volunteers, set up a command post in a donated emergency vehicle at the corner of Emmons and Nostrand avenues, and launch a campaign called “No Neighbor Left Behind.”
Then the Woman of Distinction, who is in her 50s, rode her bicycle around the soggy ghost town looking for people to help.
“I approached anyone I saw in their yards or coming in and out of their homes,” says McKenna, who directed them to food, clothing, and other essentials, and became a lifeline for residents struggling without power or communication and dealing with pollution from the raw sewage surges.
She attended a meeting of the Brooklyn chapter of the Long-Term Recovery Group, established after Sandy to help storm survivors with their unmet needs, and was elected its vice chairman within three months.
McKenna spent the next year helping the desperate and displaced locate shelter, heat, clothing, and legal and psychological assistance — among them, the woman in dire straits because her tenants stopped paying rent, and the man who worried that looters were ransacking his flooded home while he languished in an emergency hotel.
“The phone rang non-stop from seven in the morning to midnight, and I was the switchboard operator connecting people to the services they needed,” says McKenna.
Concerned that Sheepshead Bay would sink deeper into an economic abyss, she reached out to the rebuild charity, Resurrection Brooklyn Relief, and led its director on a walking tour, her vigorous advocacy motivating the group to help rebuild 15 area homes.
“Laura connected us to the needs of Sheepshead Bay, which was not getting a lot of attention,” says Pastor Brian Steadman. “She is a strong, compassionate, and educated advocate for her neighbors.”
OCCUPATION: Program coordinator.
COMPANY: Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City.
CLAIM TO FAME: I never stop caring.
FAVORITE PLACE: The beach.
WOMAN I ADMIRE: My mother Anne who was so straight she made a pin look crooked.
MOTTO: Upward ever, backward never.