Hurricane Gloria in Bohemia

September 27, 1985

The “storm of the century” kept its eye to the west, but Bohemia got the wind: hangars unroofed at MacArthur, a supermarket roof blown off, and eleven days in the dark that ended up changing who keeps Long Island’s lights on

On Friday, September 27, 1985, Hurricane Gloria came ashore on Long Island around midday, and Bohemia sat on the side of the storm where the wind blows hardest. For days the director of the National Hurricane Center had been warning that it could be “the storm of the century.” By early afternoon the wind had peeled the roofs off hangars at MacArthur Airport, on the hamlet’s doorstep. When it was over, two-thirds of LILCO’s customers were in the dark, and for some families the lights would stay out for eleven days.

Gloria is remembered on Long Island less for what it knocked down than for what came after. The storm itself passed in a few hours. The anger it left behind lasted more than a decade, and by the time it was spent, the Long Island Lighting Company was gone.

The Approach

“The Storm of the Century”

Gloria was born off the Cape Verde Islands on September 16, 1985, and spent more than a week crossing the Atlantic. By September 25 it had grown into a Category 4 hurricane, with sustained winds of 145 mph and a central pressure of 919 millibars. Neil Frank, director of the National Hurricane Center, called it “the storm of the century,” and the phrase stuck. Few storms in living memory had looked so dangerous on a track aimed at the crowded Northeast.

Gloria crossed the Outer Banks of North Carolina at about 1:30 a.m. on Friday, September 27. Then it raced north at close to 40 mph, far faster than most hurricanes travel. Long Island would have only hours between the first bands of rain and the arrival of the wind.

The island prepared as best it could. Schools across Long Island and New York City closed. Suffolk’s chief deputy county executive, John Gallagher, estimated that 100,000 people along the South Shore left their homes, and by 11 a.m. more than 3,800 had crowded into 68 emergency shelters on higher ground. The Long Island Lighting Company braced for the worst. “We will lose most of the electrical system on the island,” LILCO vice president Ira Freilicher warned that morning. Before Gloria even arrived, 115,000 homes had already lost power.

Landfall — About Noon

The Eye Passes West

Gloria’s center crossed the South Shore around noon, coming ashore on western Long Island between Kennedy Airport and Islip. UPI had it “slamming into Fire Island shortly after noon.” At 12:20 p.m. the sun broke through in Mineola and Syosset as the eye passed over Nassau County, about 25 miles west of Bohemia. Roughly an hour later, Gloria made its final landfall in Connecticut, near Westport.

For Bohemia, the eye’s position mattered. In 1938, the eye of the Long Island Express came ashore between Bayport and Bellport, just to the south and east. Gloria’s eye stayed west, which put Bohemia on the storm’s east side, where a hurricane’s winds are strongest. NOAA researchers measured Gloria’s strongest sustained winds, about 85 mph, on exactly that side.

The proof was recorded almost in Bohemia’s backyard. The highest official gust anywhere on Long Island, about 85 mph, was measured by the Islip weather station at MacArthur Airport. Unofficial readings ran higher: 97 mph in Centereach and 120 mph at the Fire Island Lighthouse. Later estimates put peak gusts near 115 mph on eastern Long Island.

Gloria was a wind storm, not a rain storm. Nearly all its rain fell west of the center, and most of Long Island saw only one to two inches. Its speed meant the worst of it came and went in a few hours. By evening Gloria was racing into New England, and Long Island was left to count the damage.

Long Island landfall	Friday, September 27, 1985, about noon
Where	Western Long Island, between Kennedy Airport and Islip; eye over Mineola and Syosset at 12:20 p.m.
Central pressure	961 millibars at Long Island landfall
Strongest sustained winds	About 85 mph, on the storm’s east side
Highest official gust on Long Island	About 85 mph, Islip weather station at MacArthur Airport
Unofficial gusts	97 mph at Centereach; 120 mph at the Fire Island Lighthouse
Rainfall	One to two inches across most of Long Island
Long Island deaths	Four linked to the storm, two of them from falling trees

Storm record — Hurricane Gloria on Long Island

The Hamlet

Bohemia in the Wind

Some of Gloria’s worst damage on Long Island happened within sight of Bohemia’s streets. At MacArthur Airport, the wind ripped the roofs off hangars. Damage like this led forecasters to conclude that parts of Long Island had felt winds in the Category 3 range, even though the official instruments recorded less.

In the hamlet itself, the damage was bad enough to make the national wire. UPI’s report that night noted a supermarket roof blown off in Bohemia and a gas explosion at a factory there. Television crews filmed workers boarding up the Bohemia ShopRite, its windows blown out and its roof torn. A few miles to the northeast, on Bald Hill in Farmingville, the WBLI-FM broadcast tower came down.

The trees took the worst of it. Across Long Island, gusts drove thousands of trees into houses and across roads, and Bohemia’s old trees were no exception. Fallen limbs blocked streets and pulled down the wires that carried power and telephone service into every house on them.

Do you remember Gloria in Bohemia? The Society is collecting photographs and memories of the storm — where you were, what came down, how long your power was out. Share your story here.

September 27 – October 8, 1985

Eleven Days in the Dark

LILCO’s warning came true. About 683,000 homes and businesses, more than two-thirds of the utility’s customers, lost power. Some waited eleven days for it to come back, and the last outages were not restored until October 8.

Life without electricity wore on everyone. Hundreds of schools stayed closed. Train trips ran up to six hours longer because the crossing gates had no power. Food, ice and generators were sold at gouging prices. LILCO’s chairman, William Catacosinos, was away from Long Island for much of the restoration, and his customers noticed.

Then came the bill. LILCO had no hurricane insurance, and it passed the $40 million cost of repairs on to its ratepayers. Long Islanders were furious. The company was already fighting to open the Shoreham nuclear plant, and Gloria raised an obvious question: if LILCO could not turn the lights back on after a hurricane, how could it be trusted to manage an emergency at Shoreham?

The anger had lasting results. In July 1986, less than a year after Gloria, the state legislature passed the bill creating the Long Island Power Authority. In 1989, LILCO agreed never to operate Shoreham, which had run only at low power for testing, and in 1992 LIPA bought the plant for $1 to decommission it. In May 1998, LIPA took over LILCO’s electric grid, and the Long Island Lighting Company passed into history.

Legacy

Between 1938 and Sandy

Gloria was the first major storm to strike Long Island directly since Hurricane Donna in 1960. It never approached the toll of 1938, when the Long Island Express killed an estimated 682 to 800 people. Four deaths on Long Island were linked to Gloria, two of them from falling trees. Luck played a part: around New York, the storm arrived at low tide, which held down the surge. Even so, the ocean destroyed 48 houses along the South Shore, and Gloria’s name was retired from the list of Atlantic storm names.

Gloria’s deepest mark was political rather than physical. The 1938 hurricane reshaped the coastline; Gloria reshaped who keeps Long Island’s lights on. Twenty-seven years later, Superstorm Sandy tested the public authority that Gloria’s anger had helped create. LIPA faced its own wave of criticism, and on January 1, 2014, day-to-day operation of the grid passed to PSEG Long Island.

When ABC7 revisited the storm in 2021, Gloria was still the last hurricane to make landfall on Long Island. For Bohemia, it remains the storm a generation measures the others against: the Friday the hangars lost their roofs, the trees came down across the hamlet, and the lights went out for days.

The Record

Timeline of the Storm

Sept. 16, 1985	Gloria forms near the Cape Verde Islands.
Sept. 25	Peaks as a Category 4 hurricane: 145 mph winds, 919 millibars.
Sept. 27, 1:30 a.m.	Crosses Hatteras Island, North Carolina.
Sept. 27, morning	Schools close; about 100,000 leave the South Shore; 3,800 in 68 shelters by 11 a.m.
Sept. 27, about noon	Center comes ashore on western Long Island.
Sept. 27, 12:20 p.m.	Eye passes over Mineola and Syosset.
Sept. 27, early afternoon	Final landfall near Westport, Connecticut.
Oct. 8, 1985	LILCO restores the last outages.
July 1986	The state legislature passes the bill creating the Long Island Power Authority.
1989	LILCO agrees never to operate Shoreham, which had run only in low-power testing.
1992	LIPA buys Shoreham for $1 and begins decommissioning it.
May 1998	LIPA takes over LILCO’s electric grid.
Jan. 1, 2014	After Sandy, PSEG Long Island takes over day-to-day operation of the grid.

Sources: National Hurricane Center, Preliminary Report, Hurricane Gloria; NOAA AOML, 30th Anniversary of Hurricane Gloria; NOAA Weather Prediction Center, Hurricane Gloria rainfall summary; UPI, September 27, 1985 and September 28, 1985; Steve Wick, “Life in the Wake of Gloria,” Newsday (2006), and Michael Grammatico, “Hurricane Gloria — September 27, 1985” (2002), as cited in Hurricane Gloria; Long Island Lighting Company company history; Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant; Southold Historical Society; LongIsland.com; ABC7 Eyewitness News Vault (2021); Bohemia Historical Society, Bohemia Timeline and The Hurricane of 1938.