Island Park Fire Department gets grant for generator

At a Village Board meeting last week, Island Park Mayor James Ruzicka announced that the village had received a $70,000 grant from Nassau County to purchase an emergency generator for the fire department headquarters.

Ruzicka said that Deputy Mayor Steve D’Esposito, working with county Legislators Denise Ford and Howard Kopel, worked to secure the money for Island Park.

“The fire department doesn’t have [a generator], and we never did,” Ruzicka said. “During [Tropical Storm Irene], we could have really used it.]

According to a representative from Ford’s office, the process to acquire the generator began in 2010 with Hurricane Earl. At the time, the IPFD made a request to the Nassau County Department of Emergency Management to borrow a generator, which it

did. After that, Ford and Kopel worked together and used their Community

Revitalization Funds to help the village purchase a generator.

“With the way the economy is and the village tax base, it’s very difficult to get [a generator],” said Ed Madden, third assistant chief of the IPFD. “So this is really a great thing for us, because for the longest time we’ve been trying to get a generator.”

The total cost of the generator, plus installation, is $80,000. The village will be paying for everything and then get reimbursed by the county for $70,000 — making the total cost of the project for the village $10,000.

During Tropical Storm Irene, the fire department’s station house lost power. To compensate, Ruzicka said the IPFD was forced to use one of its trucks as an emergency generator, using its battery to power equipment.

“All of our doors are automatic, so we have to try and manually get them up [if we lose power],” Ruzicka explained. “It’s a chore. We have to disconnect the chain drive from the motor and then lift them up manually to get them out of the way.”

With the new generator, the entire station house will be powered in an emergency. If the power goes out, the generator will automatically switch on. It will keep all of the lights, doors, phones and radios running. “And part of the fire house is being set up as a command post,” said Ruzicka, “so we’ll have contacts with Nassau County and the [Second] Battalion, just in case of a storm or a blizzard.”