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

She guards the ground where 135 homes stood before burning awayin a six-alarm fire that blazed through Breezy Point, Queens thenight Sandy made landfall, triggered by rising sea water contactinga structure's electrical wiring. The storm surge kept emergencycrews from reaching the collapsing homes, while wind gusts of up to80 mph and absence of rainfall conspired with the flames.

Sometimes one hard blow is easier to take in stride than theslow burn of a string of unfortunate events–although no lives werelost in Breezy Point, residents' lives were disrupted for more thanhalf a year after Sandy hit on Oct. 29, 2012, as renovation effortsstalled due to zoning issues regarding city building permits andshifting flood maps.

“It's eight months later, and we're still no closer than we were[to rebuilding] than the day this area was still smoldering,”Kieran Burke, an emergency service professional and lifelong BreezyPoint resident who lost his home in the blaze, said in oneresident's video filmed in June 2013 that quickly went viral.It's a sentiment shared by hundreds of his neighbors that largelystill sums up Breezy Point's collective frustration.

According to Arthur Lighthall, general manager of the BreezyPoint Cooperative Board, there are now about 40 home repairs underway in the 11697 ZIP code and a “whole slew of new filings beingswiftly reviewed,” but it took until June to begin making thosestrides.

In 1948, New York City imposed its own mapped street system ontop of the existing community, which defined the unfortunate housesin the burn zone as facing a “walkway” rather than a “mapped NYCstreet.”

For years, Breezy Point residents filed permit with the city'sBoard of Standards and Appeals to commence new construction, butwhen hundreds of Breezy homeowners suddenly appealed to the Board,the cooperative worked to expedite permit processing with aone-year waiver signed by Governor Cuomo this summer.

Breezy Point is a 500-acre cooperative located on the west endof the Rockaway peninsula and home to New Yorker's beloved FortTilden beach. Its residents, who are mostly hardworking blue-collarprofessionals such as policemen and firefighters, pay maintenanceand security costs in order to keep the community private. It isquiet and inaccessible by public transportation, the kind of placewhere generations come to roost—Lighthall's parents, sister,sister-in-law, nephews and two daughters all live in BreezyPoint.

The community, with its single-family wood-frame dwellings withwood-and-vinyl-clad doors and windows, was completely unpreparedfor a disaster of Sandy's magnitude. As if an omen, a tornadostruck Breezy Point just a month prior to Sandy, evolving from awaterspout over the ocean to a funnel that landed near the BreezyPoint Surf Club, where it ripped the roofs off cabanas, overturneda grill and caused a sensation in local news.

After Sandy, when Guy Carpenter finally managed to survey BreezyPoint on Dec. 12, 2012, the surveyors decided not to scan the areaon foot “given the degree of emergency support […] the lack of asuitable or safe place to leave the vehicle; and to avoidobstructing the recovery effort,” the risk specialist wrote in itsdamage report.

Breezy Point sustained the most concentrated damage in the LongIsland area from the superstorm. 20 percent of homes had some sortof structural disruption; one of every 10 homes was severelydamaged. Nearly every house in the area had insulated wood andhousehold items piled out in front. About 350 homes werecompletely amputated from their foundations and had to bereconstructed from the ground up.

Six months later, in April 2013, 2,400 of the neighborhood's2,800 buildings remained unoccupied. Donald Ritter, owner of theBreezy Point Surf Shop, partly blames the unfathomable cost ofrebuilding, particularly for residents who owned summer homes orsecond homes in the community and did not receive federal aid forrepairs. Many of them simply haven't returned.

“You're lucky if half the neighborhood is still here,” he saysof his departing neighbors. “A lot of long-term residents,especially the elderly, have left.”

Some blame it on bureaucracy: Jonathan Gaska, District Managerof Queens Community Board 14, which encompasses Breezy Point, saysthe cooperative's building plans have to be agreed upon between itsboard and shareholders in a time-consuming process.

Lighthall points to a higher bureaucracy, saying, “In itsadvisory flood maps, the Federal Emergency Management Association(FEMA) placed this community in a coastal zone where homes had tobe 10 feet off the ground.”

In June, preliminary maps were released, lowering mandatory homeelevation to six feet off the sidewalk and finalizing criteria onfoundational requirements, giving residents and architectsconfidence to fill out the city's building paperwork.

All parties say lack of insurance clarity played some part installing Breezy Point's resuscitation.

“The real wild card is the flood insurance—the Biggert-WatersAct may end up having a bigger effect [on rebuilding] than Sandy,”says Gaska. For that, there is future storm protection throughinstalling beach protections such as dunes and groins (hydraulicstructures that limit water and sediment movement).

The Breezy Point Cooperative itself filed and was reimbursed forthree commercial claims, as it had flood insurance on its damagedstructures. Those in the burn zones, however, were not as lucky—ifyou can count luck in a disaster.

Lighthall says the insurers and insureds within the burn zoneare locked in a debate and “pointing fingers at each other todecide whether the cause [of the blaze] was fire or flood.”

Ritter, a small business owner, only had liability insurance onhis surf shop. He said he inquired about content insurance, but itwould have cost him an unaffordable $800 per month. Not only didRitter lose thousands on flooded inventory, but business has beendown by 70 to 80 percent.

Ritter appealed to FEMA, who referred him to the Small BusinessAssociation (SBA) for a $25,000 disaster loan on which on whichRitter says the SBA offered him a six percent interest rate afterseveral rounds of visits.

He tenaciously relocated to a temporary site about half afootball field's distance from the shop Ritter has owned for 22years. He says he has seen, slowly but surely, new houses going upin the burn area.

Resiliency is rebounding after being stretched to one's limits;to be tugged home by the need to stay close to what you love.

“If I walk away,” says Ritter, “I leave what took me two decadesto build.”