AP Photo: Mark Lennihan

In one of the iconic images that have come to evoke Hurricane Sandy’s devastation, a small Virgin Mary statue stands amidst a landscape of rubble, damp palms out in an expression of blessing or questioning toward the foundation of a ruined building at her feet. 

She guards the ground where 135 homes stood before burning away in a six-alarm fire that blazed through Breezy Point, Queens the night Sandy made landfall, triggered by rising sea water contacting a structure’s electrical wiring. The storm surge kept emergency crews from reaching the collapsing homes, while wind gusts of up to 80 mph and absence of rainfall conspired with the flames.

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