We drove down to Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park on Saturday, Aug. 27 to see how the new sports complex was doing. At the Oyster Festival kickoff, Len Rothberg, event coordinator said, “We have a new [Oyster Festival] layout, which will make the flow in the Theodore Roosevelt Park easier. We have a new food court area.”
During the fall there was some concern on how the town’s plans for new multi-sports field was going to impact the Oyster Festival, but as things developed there was optimism and finally joy in the voices of the presenters. Things were going to work as you can see the way Len Rothberg expressed it.
It also appeared that the drainage work at the TR Park is working. We took photos of the new turf field on Saturday before Hurricane Irene and on Sunday, after Hurricane Irene and things looked the same! It appears that the new drainage system that was part of the plans for the turf field got a real test over the weekend and it works!
Throughout the Western Waterfront area the swails that were built to filter storm water slowly into the bay when that project was designed – were filled to the brim at 4 p.m. Sunday, but that considering the amount of water that rained down on Aug. 27 and 28 it looks as if all went well.
This is all just speculation – the phones were down in Oyster Bay so we could get no information from the town.
On a personal note: it has been a long time since we had to weather a hurricane and we are grateful everything went as well as it did in our home base in East Norwich. We and our neighbors seemed to have fared well in spite of the power outages. Oyster Bay was without power and our sympathies to all local residents who have had less good luck.
We could go back to the Oyster Festival kickoff to the words of Rotary President Chris Gallagher who looked out the window at the Community Center on Aug. 25, where it was raining, and said, “I’m praying that Mother Nature gets it all out and done and we don’t have a washout like we did two years ago. [That Saturday the storm closed the festival but Sunday proved to be a great day.]”
It wasn’t raining when we arrived as the Oyster Festival kickoff started and it wasn’t raining when we left. We hope that is a good omen for the Oyster Festival – that it too misses the challenging effects of Mother Nature.
Be sure to get oil for your oil lamps; batteries for your flashlights; a camping cookstove in case it is needed; a battery radio; and patch up all the basement leaks you just noticed; and whatever else you became aware of this past weekend – in time for the next visit of “Irene”. The hurricane season ends in November so we have a long way to go.
– DFK
