Welcome to Washed-Away

Long after the TV crews and volunteer crowds packed up and left, a band of brothers in the Rockaways keeps their eyes fixed on the future.

Photos by Mo Scarpelli

Monday, Nov. 5, 2012 — One Week After Sandy

“Welcome to Washed-Away,” Tom Burke says, sitting shotgun as his cousin Jessica Taylor drives her Jeep over the Marine Parkway Bridge from Brooklyn to the Rockaways.

Jessica, twenty-one, turns toward Jacob Riis Park, where the parking lot is now a massive garbage dump. Scores of seagulls circle overhead. Her father, Billy Taylor, watches from the back seat as they pass the dump, currently growing by hundreds of feet every day as the Department of Sanitation gradually removes the trash heaps that still remain in front of most houses.

There are flashing lights from emergency vehicles in every direction. The Jeep zigzags through sand-covered side streets, passing military Humvees and National Guard trucks, slowing down at intersections because traffic lights don’t work. Jessica drops the men at Billy’s apartment on Beach 124th Street, says goodbye, and drives toward a service station in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to spend a few hou…