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Rockaway Residents To City: Rebuild Our Beaches

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Residents of Rockaway Beach descended on City Hall in Lower Manhattan Saturday, demanding that their beaches be rebuilt right now.

As WCBS 880's Jim Smith reported, residents of the Rockaways said they feel ignored in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which devastated the peninsula in Queens.

Rockaway Residents To City: Rebuild Our Beaches

"They've worked on Coney Island. They've worked on Long Beach. We're just as entitled. We pay taxes just like everybody else," said Milly Orenga. "We need our beaches."

Orenga is one of about 50 residents taking the message directly to the steps of City Hall after they said a previous rally on the beaches fell on deaf ears.

"The beaches should've been built by now. The sand should be there, the dunes, the water walls," Orenga said. "We have nothing -- absolutely nothing."

Residents said what the city now has is plenty of federal money. And Eddy Pastore, founder of Friends of Rockaway Beach, demanded action before another hurricane season.

"We're in imminent danger of flooding again," Pastore said.

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