Asharoken gets $12 million to rebuild critical seawall
Asharoken won $12 million to rebuild a seawall that guards its only road. Village leaders say the fix is about keeping the North Shore community reachable in the next big storm.
A deteriorating seawall on Asharoken’s shoreline is set to be rebuilt with $12 million in state money, a project village leaders say is about far more than repairs. The structure protects Asharoken Avenue, the only road connecting about 2,000 residents to mainland Long Island, and officials said years of coastal storms, constant wave action and erosion have left the barrier increasingly vulnerable.
If the seawall fails, flooding could cut off the village and nearby Eaton’s Neck in the Town of Huntington from the only land access point used by residents, emergency responders, workers, students and families. That makes the project a matter of daily access as much as coastal protection: one severe storm could isolate the community and disrupt travel, services and emergency response across a narrow stretch of shoreline.
Mayor Gregory Letica called the funding announcement “historic” and said the village has lived too long with the threat that one major storm could sever the road. His warning underscored the central concern in Asharoken, where the seawall is tied directly to whether the village stays physically connected during future weather emergencies.
Gov. Kathy Hochul cast the money as part of a larger lesson from Superstorm Sandy, saying the state cannot afford another disaster of that scale. The Asharoken work is part of a broader $28.5 million infrastructure package for Suffolk County that also includes $6.5 million to restore Harbor Road in Stony Brook and $8 million to rebuild the Blydenburgh Dam, both damaged in the severe August 2024 storm.
For Suffolk County, the funding highlights a familiar pattern: coastal and inland infrastructure alike are still absorbing the cost of recent storms, and local communities are competing for state help to make repairs before the next major weather event hits. In Asharoken, the seawall project is intended to do one essential thing: keep the village’s only road passable and prevent a small North Shore community from being physically cut off when the water rises again.
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