Fire at Crabby Amy's restaurant on Seaford marina deemed accidental, electrical, officials said

A popular Seaford waterfront restaurant lay in charred ruins Friday after it was engulfed in flames on Thursday night, along with several boats, at the height of Hurricane Erin's impact on the South Shore.

Crabby Amy’s Clam and Oyster Bar, at Treasure Island Marina on Ocean Avenue, was "fully involved" when firefighters arrived after a 9:24 p.m. 911 call, Nassau County Fire Marshal Michael Uttaro said in a news release. It was destroyed, along with four boats. There were no injuries. 

Firefighters from the Wantagh Fire Department and seven neighboring departments brought the blaze under control in an hour, Uttaro said.

The high tides and floodwaters from the storm could have been a factor in the fire, Uttaro said, which is not considered suspicious. The cause appears to be electrical and accidental. The marina is on a canal that leads to the Great South Bay, where Erin was furiously churning up seas on Thursday night.

High water may have short-circuited electrical equipment fixtures near the dock and the restaurant but was not ruled as a definitive cause, Uttaro said.

"Water inundated the property and the amount of destruction is considerable," he said. "Saltwater is corrosive ... . Electrical connections to the restaurant or a temporary bar could be just enough to cause a malfunction and a spark."

Raymond Reichel, the general manager of Treasure Island Marina, where the restaurant was located, said in an interview on Friday that he lived around the corner but by the time he got to the scene, "it was totally engulfed ... the whole sky was orange." He added: "When the boats go up, they're very hard to put out."

He said one of the other boat owners took two of the burning vessels and "sent them down the canal" so they couldn't spread the blaze. Reichel said four boats were "total losses," including one that had to be lifted out of the water after it sank. Several others were damaged.

On Friday afternoon, people trickled in and out of the marina area to snap pictures of the burned building.

Levittown resident Maureen Kustka said her boat was "directly behind Crabby Amy’s." She rushed to the marina at 1 a.m. and found her boat was not damaged, other than some debris that made its way inside.

"It seemed like the winds were blowing [the other direction]." she told Newsday. "These poor people and all of those boats."

Robin Cyrille, an office manager at the Treasure Island Marina, said "the boats are a big loss to the owners." The marina office building itself, which is next to the restaurant, sustained only minor damage, including broken windows, Cyrille said.

Diane Caputo walked about a mile-and-a-half from her home in Seaford to the marina on Friday afternoon to mourn the restaurant, a neighborhood staple.

"The place was great. All the people who live here, everybody has been down here a lot. My daughter comes down with the kids," she said. "They had great food. And [the owner] is such a very nice person. I hope they rebuild it."

Crabby Amy's owner, Amy Breidenbach, declined to comment on Friday.

But in a Friday afternoon Facebook post, Crabby Amy's thanked its customers and the firefighters, saying: " ... We are unsure of what the future holds for our dear crab shack."

Newsday's Nicholas Spangler contributed to this report.