Rains cause heavy flooding in Bellmore-Merrick

Parts of Bellmore-Merrick were underwater last week, when a rainstorm of historic proportions caused flooding across the area.

The National Weather Service issued flash-flood warnings for much of Long Island on Aug. 12, and as much as 13 inches of rain fell overnight in some locations. As of 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 13, officials reported that Bellmore had received 5.2 inches and Merrick, 6.8 inches, in six hours –– roughly the rate of rainfall seen in a hurricane. Some meteorologists said the storm was a once-in-200-years or even a once-in-500-years event.

The Bellmore Fire Department went to work in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with firefighters responding to six calls for help at the height of the storm.

Bellmore Fire Chief Stephen Marsar said that Heavy Rescue Unit 607 –– comprising Capt. Michael Irving, Lt. Denis McCann, Ex-Chief Robert Frazer, Ex-Capt. Michael Massaro, officer Jeffrey Anderson and Marsar –– began assisting residents at 5 a.m. Wearing cold-water suits, the group rescued four people from partially submerged cars near the intersections of Newbridge Road and Sunrise Highway and Smith Street and Merokee Drive.

The unit also checked three partially flooded homes of elderly residents. Marsar noted that the houses were near Newbridge Pond, which divides Bellmore from Merrick and is just north of Sunrise Highway and the Meroke Preserve. The pond and its streambed overflowed during the storm.

Additional fire units were called to help. Members of Engine 601 cut electrical power to a Mitchell Street home whose basement flooded. At 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, firefighters returned to the area to extinguish an electrical fire caused by earlier flooding on Merokee Drive.

Throughout the storm, members of Bellmore’s Engine 603 stood by at the firehouse at Newbridge and Merrick roads. Marsar said he had expected calls from residents on the peninsulas south of Merrick Road, but they never came.

Marsar noted that he was proud of the department’s response during the storm. “Once again,” he said, “our neighbors –– the men and women of the Bellmore Fire Department –– answered these calls for help with professionalism, respect and success.”

The flooding, which was heavier in eastern Long Island, closed 11 thoroughfares, including the Southern State Parkway, the Wantagh State Parkway and Sunrise Highway, in Nassau and Suffolk counties.