At 10 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 18, Christian Neubert, second assistant chief for the Port Jefferson Fire Department, responded to what seemed like a routine call. The skies over Port Jefferson village were clear. But shortly after that, the village was caught unaware by an unrelenting downpour that would last nearly six hours.
“Once the rain started, we had very few moments of it letting up,” Neubert said in a phone interview with TBR News Media. The storm’s intensity caught everyone off guard.
Then, the firehouse started to flood. The station’s dispatchers could see through surveillance cameras that water was collecting in the back parking lot and the storm drains were slowing as water began to flow in reverse…