It all started with an old film reel of Jackie Robinson, found in the wreckage of a Breezy Point house a couple of days after 350 other homes were leveled by floods and fire in a single night during Hurricane Sandy.

On a top shelf, untouched by the floodwaters from the 9-foot-high storm surge, Paul Balukas reached his hand into the back of a closet and found an old peanut tin — full of about 20 round, gray metal Super 16 mm film canisters — heavy with the acrid scent of nitrate.

They belonged to homeowner and widow Doris Neimeth, who is now 85. She was in Florida with her husband Albert when Sandy hit and she got the news that her home, which was passed down through Albert's mother, was lying on its side with most of its furniture and appliances washed away.

“When the ocean met the bay, it knocked my house off its foundation,” Neimeth said. Her home was already built up on cinder blocks about 6 feet off the ground. “When we went to see it, it was on an angle, a tilt, and the deck was gone.”

She told Balukas to take whatever he could salvage from the remains of her house for Christ Community Church, where he was president for many years.

From what seemed destined for the dumpster came the seeds of the Breezy Point Historical Society, an organization with a mission to make the tight-knit Queens community’s memories more resilient to future storms by preserving them.

Ten years after the storm, the 500-acre beach cooperative of mostly city workers continues to provide a daily stream of local artifacts for consideration in the society’s collection — as well as financial support since the organization became officially chartered in 2015. The organization is run by 18 dedicated volunteers, mostly current and former board members, who are supported by the group’s 150 members.

The society offers a blueprint for preserving local memories for countless coastal neighborhoods due to be hit by intensifying storms as climate change worsens.

Click "listen" in the player to hear a feature about the historical society, and visit Gothamist for more details.