Sandy damaged houses across Long Island, such as this one in Atlantique on Fire Island.

Superstorm Sandy went down in history six months ago as one of the biggest natural disasters to hit Long Island, irreversibly changing its landscape and washing away many residents’ sense of security.

While the widespread blackouts, lengthy gas-shortage lines, catastrophic flooding and mountainous debris piles are mostly just a memory, recovery efforts are still most visible on LI’s Atlantic Ocean-facing barrier beaches that suffered the worst damage.

“Sandy to some people is gone, it’s passed,” said James Mallot, the mayor of Ocean Beach, Fire Island’s unofficial capital. “We live it out there every single minute of the day.”

The village, like the rest of LI’s Sandy-ravaged beachfront communities, is rushing to prepare for Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff to the summer beach and tourist season that pumps billions into the local economy.

Meanwhile, a breach that Sandy caused in Fire Island’s federal wilderness area to the east of the residential communities remains open, which has become a point of contention between those who blame the breach on flooding in communities near the Great South Bay and others who argue it’s cleaning out the polluted waterways.

The storm, a massive hybrid of a category 1 hurricane that merged with a nor’easter, is considered the worst to hit the region since the infamous “Long Island Express” in 1938.

Looking to Katrina for Perspective on Sandy Recovery Timeline

In the City of Long Beach on LI’s westernmost barrier island, officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday to commemorate construction of the new boardwalk to replace the old one that Sandy destroyed—although the Long Beach Medical Center is still closed.

“We came together months ago to mourn the loss of our boardwalk,” Scott Mandel, president of the Long Beach City council, told hundreds of residents who gathered for the event. “Today we come together to celebrate the rebirth of it. Long Beach is coming back better than ever.”

A five-mile stretch of badly damaged Ocean Parkway on Jones Beach Island just reopened last week after contractors rebuilt the roadway’s protective dunes that were washed away. Parts of Jones Beach itself are already reopened, but Robert Moses State Park is still closed.

And in the Hamptons, some millionaires have sparked controversy by building seawalls—work that may be challenged in court—in the hopes of protecting their oceanfront mansions, The New York Times recently reported.

Signs of a comeback can be found on mainland LI as well. Camp Bulldog, a makeshift support network in Lindenhurst that was a lifeline for residents coping in Sandy’s aftermath, closed over the weekend. On the North Shore, the West Shore Road seawall is nearing completion. And East Rockaway Junior-High School reopened Monday just in time to mark the six-month mark of the Oct. 29 storm.

Also on Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that its four remaining disaster recovery centers in Long Beach, Island Park, Seaford and Copiague will become Disaster Loan Outreach Centers on Wednesday, indicating another milestone in the recovery process.

“New York has made tremendous progress in the six months since Sandy,” said Michael F. Byrne, FEMA’s federal coordinating officer for Hurricane Sandy operations. “But the work is not done.”

Matthew Bock, 21, was riding a Yamaha southbound on Route 112 when he collided with a Toyota Camry driven by 66-year-old Anthony Tufariello of Copiague, who was making a left turn onto Sagamore Hills Drive at 9:15 p.m., police said.

Bock was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital for treatment of serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Tufariello was not injured but he was issued a ticket for driving with an expired registration.

Sixth Squad detectives impounded both vehicles for safety checks, are continuing the investigation and ask anyone with information about the crash to contact them at 631-854-8652.

Narcotics/Vice Bureau detectives executed a search warrant on the couple’s Times Avenue home following an undercover operation. They found 1,534 bags of heroine, 50 pills of Alprazolam, and an undetermined amount of cash inside.

Thomas Mckinley, 53, and his 61-year-old wife, Lorraine Bianchini, were each charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance. Mckinley was additionally charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance.

Two alleged buyers, 26-year-old Maggie Caballero of East Rockaway and 25-year-old Grant Marshall of Copiague, were arrested for heroin possession after police said they bought from the couple before the raid.

Caballero and Marshall were also charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.

All four will be arraigned Tuesday at First District Court in Hempstead.

In the first of the most recent cases, two men broke into a Pleasantview Court home in Copiague, flashed a gun, demanded money and pistol-whipped a man inside at 9:20 p.m. Friday, police said. The suspects, described only as black men, fled with cash and property, police said.

Then at 11:40 p.m. Friday, three armed men kicked in the back door of a North 17th Street home in Wyandanch, stole money from the victims inside and fled the scene. The trio was only described as a group of Hispanic men.

A police spokesman could not confirm initial reports that the suspects were armed with a pistol and a machete but did say there have been no arrests in either case. It was unclear if there were any injuries in the second case.

The pair of Feb. 15 cases bring into the double digits the number of armed home invasions in Suffolk since Jan. 15, when there were five such incidents in a week in Mastic, North Lindenhurst, Dix Hills, Huntington and Coram. There were five arrested in the Huntington case and three arrested in the North Lindenhurt case.

A sixth armed home invasion was reported in Gordon Heights on Jan. 25, two days before a 21-year-old man was gunned down by home invaders in Flanders.

Three people have been arrested for the eighth armed home invasion in Halesite on Feb. 5 and another trio has been charged with the ninth home invasion in Central Islip in the early morning hours of Feb. 7.

Police are continuing the investigations.