NY Synagogue Confronts Flood After Record Rains

The record-flooding that struck New York City last weekend left a trail of water damage throughout the state in its wake, inundating at least one Jewish institution in Long Island.

Rabbi Yaakov Saacks, co-director of the Lubavitch Chai Center in Dix Hills, N.Y., came in for services Sunday morning and on a hunch went to check downstairs. The bottom floor of the two-story Chabad-Lubavitch center, which recently celebrated its 18th anniversary of operations, was flooded. The heavy rains had poured several inches of water into the center’s preschool and Hebrew school classrooms.

“I found a disaster,” Saacks said of the destroyed furniture and carpeting, which may yet have to be ripped up.

He moved computer towers off the floor, unplugged surge protectors, and embarked on what he had previously anticipated would be an early day, spending from 8:30 in the morning until 6:00 in the evening making sure everything was under control.

“It was just a matter of cleaning up,” he said, “but things were a mess.”

According to the National Weather Service, as much as 10 inches of rain had fallen in some locations of Long Island by Monday, with a storm spotter in Dix Hills recording 6.41 inches of rain.

Saacks moved as much preschool furniture as he could by himself – wood tables and chairs, along with custom rugs made with the Hebrew alphabet and Jewish symbols on them – and then was joined by others, who helped pump, vacuum, and otherwise dry and schlep. Half the morning congregation came downstairs to help get the water out.

“We spent a few hours together, trying to salvage what we could,” said Saacks.

By yesterday, the floods had been cleaned and mopped, and industrial fans were hard at work drying out the space in anticipation of the approximately 150 preschool and Hebrew school students who will start classes in just three weeks.

“Everything has to be fully ready,” commented the rabbi. “If we have to restore, replace, replenish, we will.”