By:JOSEPH KELLARD
"The whole experience was worse than I thought it would be," said Joe DeVita, owner of Empire Point Marina on Austin Blvd. In March, a fire broke out in his boat yard and wreaked damage and destruction on boats docked there for the winter.
Six months after the blaze spread to 25 of those boats, DeVita has yet to completely rid his marina of them all.
"The damaged boats were just taken out of here a week ago," said DeVita, who opened Empire in 1984 and developed it with his parents. "We had to cut up about eight boats, and we went through about 15 dumpsters. Two boats are still in the boat yard. One hasn't even been touched yet as far as repairs because it's in litigation with an insurance company, and another one is in the process of being repaired."
On that cold Sunday afternoon in March, Nick Katsanos had stopped by the marina to check on his boat. After hearing an explosion, he spotted a fire on one boat. While DeVita was off that day, his parents were at the marina and Katsanos got them out.
The fire raged for approximately four hours, from 2 to 6 p.m. High winds helped fan the flames, said Detective Raymond Kurz of the Nassau County Arson/Bomb Squad, who investigated the fire. Also making matters worse was that most of the boats were wrapped in protective plastic tarps, the boats themselves were made of fiberglass, and the tight quarters in that part of the marina made it more difficult for the approximately 100 firefighters to extinguish the fire, Kurz added.
Igniting just before spring when marinas are busy preparing to put boats back in the water, the fire couldn't have come at a worse time for Empire. But despite the extensive damage caused by the blaze, which was confined to one section of the marina, DeVita managed to get all the undamaged boats in the water on schedule in the spring.
This was one bright spot in what continues to be an otherwise nightmarish experience for him.
"I thought I'd have the damaged boats out of here a lot sooner, and I thought that it would be over, but it seems like this thing is just going to fester right through until next year."
In the aftermath of the fire, DeVita was told by a boat surveyor that something had shorted in the boat where the fire was started. Investigator Gene Pitzak of the Nassau County Fire Marshals Office, however, who has been on the case since March, said, "The cause of the fire is undetermined, pending the ongoing investigation."
Chris Downs, who fought the fire as both captain of the Hose Company in Island Park and service manager of the marina, said the case is still pending and it's going to court.
Now, while laboring to get his business back to normal, DeVita will have to contend with a case in court that will center on insurance issues.
In the mean time, to prevent anything like this from happening again, DeVita has taken certain precautions.
"One thing is for sure, no customers are allowed to plug their boats in under any circumstance on land."
