STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A modest local deli in Ocean Breeze lived up to its name in the first tumultuous, emotionally wrought days after Hurricane Sandy upended this tightly knit neighborhood forever.
Owners and employees of Amazing Deli -- on Oceanside Avenue, between Seaview and Liberty avenues -- lent helping hands to reeling residents, and to family and friends who came looking for them in the violent storm's aftermath.
The kind-hearted men from the deli also extended hospitality to local and out-of-town volunteers who soon arrived in droves to help out in the devastated area, where many long-time residents were displaced from hopelessly flooded homes, and an 85-year-old man lost his life on nearby Quincy Avenue.
There were no other commercial establishments in sight along this stretch of Cappodano Boulevard on the Island's East Shore, so the deli served as a local go-to place after the storm.
"We gave out free coffee for a whole week, let people use the bathroom, and lent our tools and hoses," said Ali Elawam, who has worked at the deli for four years.
"We shared our pumps -- the pumps traveled from house to house," he added.
"We helped people because they were like family -- we knew them by name, we knew their kids, we cared about them," said Elawam, who lives in South Beach with his wife and two daughters, ages 10 and 18. "That day (after Sandy hit), we were like one family.
"People gathered around the store, and left notes for people they were looking for and could not find. We were like a post office," Elawam recounted.
A NEIGHBORHOOD BASE
"This was a base for the neighborhood," added Najeh Jawad of Dongan Hills, who had been working at the deli for three years when the superstorm blasted the shorefront community with its destructive power. "People would come in and ask things like: 'Did you see this guy? Do you know if he's okay?'"
The home of James Rossi, 85, at 575 Quincy Ave. in Ocean Breeze. He was found dead in his back yard, one of 24 Staten Islanders whose lives were taken in Hurricane Sandy. (Staten Island Advance/ Bill Lyons)
Jawad remembered James Rossi, 85, who lived up the street on Quincy Avenue and was one of the 24 Islanders who lost their lives in the storm.
"He came here every morning for coffee and the Staten Island Advance," said Jawad.
Rossi reportedly refused his son's urging to evacuate his Quincy Avenue house, "and they found his body in the bushes behind his house," Jawad said.
'DESOLATION VIEW'
Arriving at the deli the afternoon after Sandy roared through, Ali Elawam, who is from Casablanca, Morocco, said he'd never seen anything like it.
"It was a desolation view, like an apocalypse," he said. "The water had receded (on Cappodano Boulevard and Oceanside Avenue, at least, although lower-lying areas remained flooded), but everything here was covered with mud and debris, and cars were piled on top of one another," he recalled.
The house immediately next door to the deli was flattened, he said, pointing to a now-vacant small lot. "The woman who lived there was outside, crying all day."
Amazing Deli itself suffered about $50,000 in losses of inventory, supplies and equipment housed in the basement, which was inundated in Sandy's enormous surge that fateful night almost two years ago.
The basement cleanup began the next day, "when my boss got a big generator from a friend," Elawam reported.
The generator brought welcome lighting and refrigeration back to the deli's first floor, facilitating days-long tedious clean-up but also enabling this local business to keep its doors open, and carry out multiple good deeds for neighborhood residents and volunteers alike.