Village, county team up to keep local residents cool

During the heat wave last week, when triple-digit temperatures baked the entire tri-state area, Rockville Centre made sure its residents stayed comfortable, opening a cooling center at the Sandel Senior Center on South Park Avenue with the help of Nassau County officials and volunteers from the Civilian Emergency Response Team.

On the center's opening day, July 6, County Executive Ed Mangano dropped by and was greeted by Mayor Mary Bossart, Deputy Mayor Chuck Joyce and the village's senior services director, Dr. Cyd Charrow.

The air-conditioned cooling center offered medical assistance for anyone who needed it. CERT team volunteers, who have undergone an eight-week training course in disaster preparedness and response, were handing out ice-cold water.

"The combination of heat and humidity can become unbearable and dangerous for many of our residents," said Mangano. "It's important that we have alternatives for people who don't have air conditioning or perhaps the air conditioning has failed."

With record-breaking high temperatures, there were a total of 113 power outages in the village between July 4 and 6, caused by everything from blown fuses to failed transformers, village spokesman Jeff Kluewer said.

On July 7, according to Kluewer, 692 residents experienced planned 15- to 30-minute electrical service interruptions when Electric Department engineers switched them off overloaded substation transformers to relieve stress on the system. Substation repairs were made to prevent future overloads so that residents will not have this type of service interruption again, Kluewer said.

During the heat wave, the village nearly broke a record for electricity use. On July 6 at 4:30 p.m., residents used 54.5 megawatts of electricity, only slightly less than the record 55.6 megawatts used on Aug. 3, 2006.

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