FAR ROCKAWAY, NY — The isolated Rockaways in Queens have faced some of the worst that Hurricane Sandy had to offer. Flooding has destroyed houses. The public housing projects that dominate the landscape have been left largely without power, and residents worry about the cold that's setting in. Their desperation looks like that of Staten Island or coastal Brooklyn, but maybe worse; drive down Beach Channel Drive, from the more affluent parts of the island to those less so, and people are straggling down the street, carrying empty carts and bags. Everyone's possessions are out on the street, cast out of ruined living rooms.

Occupy Wall Street, of all things, has reemerged as a vital presence in this grim scene. The Rockaways' depressed main artery is dotted with bright spots: volunteer stations manned by Occupy volunteers, whose Occupy Sandy organization has filled the holes that government agencies and charity organizations have been unable to in some parts of New York City. Nearly every day since the aftermath of the storm began, Occupy Sandy has been at St. Gertrude's Church and a few other spots in the area, delivering supplies in a van adorned with "99%" stickers, giving out food and clothing, and organizing canvassers to go to people's houses and offer help.

St. Gertrude's, on Beach 37th Street, bustled on Sunday afternoon. Volunteers stood next to clothing, food, and other supply stations, while others fanned out across the neighborhood on bikes or on foot in the neighborhood. A steady stream of people from the neighborhood gathered to collect supplies; some spontaneously thanked this reporter, assuming she was one of the volunteers.

"Yesterday, people were crying and saying 'God bless you,'" said a volunteer who gave her name as Denelle, who had been working in the Rockaways for the past few days. "Today it got a little crazy." She said that the demand for services was high, and it grew higher farther into Far Rockaway.

"Farther down there's less of a presence," she said, referring to FEMA and city government agencies. "We were doing some guerrilla volunteering, you know, just four of us in the car, down at Beach 8th Street. And the police said, 'You shouldn't be here, it's not safe for you."'

After months of failed attempts at a revival, interspersed with long periods of basically nothing, Occupy has found a crisis that is a surprising match for the capacities it developed as a flexible and sometimes amorphous focus movement and builder of tent cities, seeking at times to speak for the poor with no clear mandate from its would-be constituents. Now Occupy is working directly with the people it has tried to advocate for by protesting Wall Street banks. The generally white and upper-middle-class protesters have made other attempts to gain traction in disadvantaged neighborhoods, including a disastrous attempt to reappropriate a foreclosed home for a family in East New York. But the Occupy Sandy effort is doing real good in a situation where the needs are obvious and widespread. And the Rockaways truly need it. Problems run the gamut from hunger to cold to where voting will occur on Tuesday.