By KEITH GRANT
Therefore, to those who protect and serve us on the barrier island, or those who do it in New York but call Long Beach their home, we say thanks. In this extraordinary year in our history, we feel it is best to honor all of the men and women who answer the call.
If there's a problem,
I want to deal with it'
James Canner wasn't exactly prepared to go swimming on this day. But as a brutal nor'easter battered the barrier island in 1992, he suddenly found himself standing in four feet of water on West Park Avenue.
It was up over my gun belt, he said. With his vehicle clearly not going anywhere, the Long Beach policeman noticed a house fire in a house on Virginia and the bay, just down the short street from where he was. Fighting a current that could have pulled him out into Reynolds Channel, Canner made his way into the home, where things weren't any better.
The current was ripping through the house, and I saw that there was gas sitting on top of water, he said. But after hearing someone's yells from upstairs, Canner managed to fight the conditions and carry a woman and an infant out to a waiting fire truck on Park Avenue. The rescue would prove to be far from the LBPD's lone one of the night.
We helped a lot of people that night, Canner said. Some cops got hypothermia. But at end of day, we got the job done.
A lifelong resident of Long Beach and now a detective on the squad, Canner expresses the utmost respect for his colleagues on the job.
We all chose law enforcement for different reasons, he said. But everyone here's a real professional. The job always gets done.
While an occasional rescue will always pop up as part of the job, tackling seemingly simple quality of life issues make up a big part of the job, and are not dismissed by police, Canner says. An issue as simple as stopping trucks from using East Hudson Street coming out of Waldbaum's can make a big difference for a neighborhood, he said.
Hey, I live in Long Beach. If there's a problem, I want to deal with it, he said. Knowing a neighborhood's particular concerns can go a long towards helping police deal with the problems, he says.
Every community has different concerns. By knowing them, we're able to do our job better, said Canner, who spent two years with the NYPD. In New York, you don't know the person and their situation. I think it's better to work in your community. You know the community and know the concerns.
Even in a community where crime is down, police know that the potential exists to be caught in a life-threatening situation at any given time. Whether it's dealing with a sudden flood, diving into the channel to rescue a jumper, as Officer Ronald Mann did just a couple of years ago, or entering a stranger's home after a 9-1-1 call, any moment can become a serious incident.
You can go to a routine call and in a split second your life can be threatened.
In the line of duty
Long Beach was reminded of the dangers that are a part of police and firefighter's daily lives months before the World Trade Center. Last June, on Father's Day, an explosion during what was expected to be a routine blaze at a Queens hardware store claimed the lives of three of the FDNY's Bravest.
Among those killed was Long Beach resident Harry Ford. Ford's funeral drew more than 10,000 people to the streets around St. Ignatius Church, mostly firefighting brethren from all across the country.
The blast occurred just minutes after the arrival of Ford's Rescue Co. 4. The 50-year-old Ford left behind a wife, Denise, and three children.
Emergency workers know that this type of tragedy can occur to any of them at any time, even in a quiet hamlet like Point Lookout. Twenty-years ago, the community was rocked by the devastating loss of one of its own, Capt. George Grant. A fire on Bellmore Avenue, the second of the night at the same home, led to a roof collapse on Grant and three fellow firefighters. Grant, who was engaged and on the FDNY's waiting list, died after being trapped inside the house for 45 minutes while brother firefighters risked their own lives to get him out.
Long Beach firefighters know it can happen it any community, as well, having lost three of their own in the line of duty: Assistant Chief Philip Cohen (1975), Lt. Morton Golden (1968) and FF. Santo Caracciola (1956).
As the city has grown in the past two decades, the department had become known as the busiest on Long Island. Oceanside native Ken Marino, who perished on Sept. 11, had joined the Long Beach volunteers years ago before making it into the FDNY just to be a part of the busiest firehouse possible.
We're going to end the year with over 4,500 calls, LBFD's Assistant Fire Chief Scott Kemins said.
Long Beach's 22 paid and roughly 150 volunteer firefighters handle everything from overcooked meals to car accident rescues, EMT calls and apartment building blazes, such as the perilous March, 1999 inferno at 55 Monroe that left one floor of the building in charred ruins.
Kemins calls the department the best on Long Island due to a whole range of factors: training, equipment (such as the 105-foot and 95-foot ladders, as well as new radios), and its combination of paid and volunteer firefighters and Emergency Medical Technicians.
In Long Beach, you're guaranteed of having an EMT at your house within 2-3 minutes of the call, Kemins said. Garden City owns Nassau's only other mixed paid and volunteer department, Kemins said, but only Long Beach also handles EMS calls.
[The EMTs] are extremely important, said Kemins, an ex-New York City police officer. Out of 4,500 alarms, probably 3,500 are EMS calls. With the number of EMTs and paramedics lessening in recent years, Kemins said their service is even more vital, today.
It's a six month class, three nights a week, Kemins said. That puts a large demand on people. You really have to want to do it.
Many emergency workers learned that the training may come in handy at any given moment. This past summer, Lido resident Chris Cahn, a former Lido-Point Lookout EMT, rescued a drowning young neighbor.
They have a lot more to do, now. You've got to be a doctor, said retired New York City firefighter Bill Crowley of Long Beach. They probably save more lives than anybody.
A 36-year firefighting veteran before his retirement from the FDNY in 1996, Crowley had seen many changes in firefighting, one of the biggest ones being the growth of emergency medical service provided by firefighters.
I didn't like anything but fire duty, he admits. You probably sound like a jerk if you say you love the fire duty, but we all did. It was a challenge.
Throughout his career, Crowley helped fight tenement fires in Harlem, basement fires five stories below ground in midtown, and played countless funerals as a member of the department's pipe-band, a task he continues to carry out, today. He witnessed developments such as bunker gear, which keeps firefighters almost completely covered, and blunders like the Super Pumper.
It could hook up to hydrants 5, 6 blocks away. The problem was it sucked all the hydrants dry. It was a bomb.
By and large, he says basic firefighting hasn't changed in 150 years.
Everybody goes into a fire, he says. Even chiefs go in if it's big enough. They're in there with you. That's a part of what creates the firefighters' brotherhood, Crowley said. But another factor is, We goof off a lot. In the firehouse, at the fires, out in the street. You have to laugh sometime. God forbid, you can't be serious all the time.
Another factor in the brotherhood is the military-style boot camp all new firefighters attend before earning a place in the department. Crowley's son, Tommy, 29, completed his last spring and began 14 weeks of training in May. He was due for a return to the academy for evaluation when Sept. 11 hit and changed all fire department plans. The younger Crowley is now assigned to Engine 302/Ladder 155 in Queens, where fellow firefighters are breaking him into the job.
Being the new guy, you've got to keep on your toes, said Crowley, whose older brother, Billy, is on the NYPD. Doing dishes, cleaning the tools and trucks. But it's great. It's a second family. [Firefighters] are the most down to Earth group of people. You can't find better.
Despite the months of training, Crowley said a bit of nervousness can't be helped on those first few runs on the job.
You're nervous. You don't want to be the last guy on the truck. You want to make sure you've got everything on. You want to make sure you do everything right, he said. But after you go on two or three runs, you worry about the next thing...where am I going to go [at the scene]? What tools am I bringing?
There is a lot to know, he said. You're constantly studying. Guys right now are studying for lieutenant who have been studying for three years. And you're constantly learning new things coming down.
Crowley lost six men from his graduating class on Sept. 11, including his squad leader. But while the tragedy can't help but creep into the minds of firefighters during downtime, he said that during a call they are all business. When a call comes in, the overriding feeling is knowing there's something going on and you've got to take care of somebody, or take care of one of your own.
True Blue
Michael Diamond had a number of people to take care of on Sept. 11. A member of the NYPD's Harbor Unit, he helped evacuate thousands of people from lower Manhattan after the towers fell.
We came pulling up as the second one came down.
Seeing that there wasn't much he could do at the scene, Diamond, a lifelong Long Beach resident, opened the nearby Wall St. heliport for NYPD and tug-boats for a Dunkirk-style evacuation of lower Manhattan.
We took people out until the late afternoon. Until almost the whole city was evacuated, Diamond said. We must've taken thousands and thousands of people off that day.
While that day was clearly the most unusual on the job, Diamond's detail isn't new at saving lives. Covering New York's waters from the Varazzano to the George Washington and 59th Street Bridges, he has helped rescue many bridge jumpers.
However, the 13-year veteran says the best part of the job is merely helping people when they're in distress.
Whether it's pulling somebody out and finding out he's alive, or just being there when somebody's boat breaks down, Diamond says. It's a great detail. I just treat people like I like to be treated.
Their smiles said it all
Sometimes it can be the littlest parts of the job that end up being the most rewarding. If not to the officers, certainly to the public.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, Judy Ann Hurst called her five children in from outside their West Olive Street home as she finished making some pasta for dinner. When everyone was just about seated, she realized everyone was in but Jenny, her four-and-a-half year old. After checking the yard and the house for about 10 minutes (It could've been 10 minutes, it could've been 10 seconds, she said), Judy Ann called the police.
For the next 45 minutes, Hurst saw the entire neighborhood and the police come together to help find Jennifer.
We had checked the house so many times, Hurst explained. So when I saw this policeman coming down the stairs with her in his arms, I could feel my face get so perplexed. I couldn't understand why my child was in this policeman's arms.
Having decided to play a game of hide-and-seek (and not tell anyone), Jennifer had managed to get herself underneath a coffee table in an upstairs closet that was covered with clothes. Once in the cozy space, she feel asleep. She was out cold, her mom said.
Judy Ann, her husband Gordon, and their five children
