Threatened Lobster Supply Saved

Twitter and Facebook have been inundated with tales of the havoc wreaked by Hurricane Sandy, and the restaurant industry has certainly taken serious hit. Food spoilage ranks high on the list of worst-case scenarios, making power outages especially devastating.

With flood damage and a dead walk-in freezer, Susan Povich and Ralph Gorham of the Red Hook Lobster Pound in Red Hook, Brooklyn, took to Twitter to source a solution, first asking neighborhood supermarket Fairway, "Are your freezers working? We could use some help" on their @RedHookLobsterPound Twitter page.

When it was determined that most commercial cold storage in Red Hook had been rendered useless by the storm, Povich found a partial solution in the refrigerated walk-in at Shamus Jones' Brooklyn Brine Co. in Gowanus. However, the true crustacean savior turned out to be Los Paisanos butcher in Cobble Hill. The latest Tweet from the Red Hook Lobster Pound team had them headed to Astoria for "LOTS OF DRY ICE."

Get those buns toasted and ready — a lobster saved is a lobster eaten.

*Update: Gorham estimates that the damage incurred from flooding is in the $100,000 range. In a press conference on Oct. 31, Mayor Bloomberg stated that there are loans and financial aid for property damage available to business owners. Hopefully some of those funds find their way to Red Hook.