By: Carrie James
At 11 a.m. on Sept. 11, the East Meadow Fire District's station houses found themselves overflowing with firefighters and EMTs as the whole department was put on stand by and everyone responded to their respective fire house.
All this was done, said 1st Asst. Chief Anthony Paoliceli, to meet whatever needs came out of New York City, especially lower Manhattan. Like many fire districts throughout Long Island, East Meadow was called out as part of a cooperative effort between fire districts in the city and surrounding areas.
"Between 40 and 50 members went out of the district and we still had 60 here to handle anything that happened in East Meadow," Paoliceli said. The district sent two ambulances and three trucks, including the heavy rescue engine and team. "The last unit returned at 11 p.m. last night (Wednesday, Sept. 12)."
Paoliceli detailed what each vehicle and team did during the two days they were involved with activity in New York City. By 2 p.m. on Tuesday, two ambulances had been sent to the city to assist, one was sent to Jamaica Avenue and the other to Shea Stadium. They were later sent to lower Manhattan to assist at a make-shift triage unit. The department sent Ladder Co. No. 2 and Engine Co. No. 3 late in the evening to assist city crews to respond to incidents in the Jamaica Avenue area. Later these two companies also made their way to ground zero to assist. Another Engine Company was relocated briefly to Long Beach, while Long Beach crews moved to the city to assist, Paoliceli said. Finally, on Wednesday morning, East Meadow sent the Heavy Rescue team into Manhattan to help with the relief efforts.
"By the time we got there about 2 a.m. they were bringing in police and we were flushing eyes out," said Patricia Brown, a captain with the EMT unit. "I'll never forget the faces, they had no expressions on their faces. They were just blank."
Everyday these men and women who serve the East Meadow Fire District, trained and prepared to handle any tragedy, but usually what they deal with are accidents or natural disasters. This was a whole new realm, and something they will never forget.
"Complete devastation," Paoliceli recalled. "It's one thing to go through an incident where its an accident, but this is a totally different scale because of how it happened. It was just a matter of knowing that you had to help. Men from every department had to be mentally strong to do what was needed there."
One of the firefighters who first went down to ground zero, Bob Longabardi, said walking from where they parked the engine, a couple blocks from where the towers once stood, into the destruction was terrifying.
"I just wanted to get in and help. I was just thinking about helping others and even as you mentally wanted to be there three, four or five days, your body physically gave out," he said. "Everyone was helping everybody else."
According to East Meadow Fire District Commissioners Carey Welt and Bob Beck, it is part of a cooperative agreement set up years ago to help other stations in need that is a part of the reason East Meadow participated in helping other fire houses. But as Paoliceli, Longabardi, Brown and 2nd Asst. Chief Mike Finnegan all said they helped because it needed to be done and they felt the need to help out.
"The togetherness was the most tremendously positive thing I saw there," said Jim Martino, another of East Meadow's firefighters that helped in the relief effort at ground zero and throughout Long Island and the city on Sept. 11 and the following day. "People were coming up offering us food, socks. The camaraderie was amazing."
At the same time, however, they all said this is something they won't easily get over seeing. It was devastation that they never expected to encounter in their participation in the fire department.
"Before getting into Queens, we turned and looked to the left and saw where the towers used to be. No one spoke, it was an eerie silence," said Commissioner Beck. "And when we got to the sight, the only thing you heard were the trucks. It was otherwise an eerie silence there. No one was speaking. It was just those waiting to get assignments and getting to work."
While the East Meadow men and women are all back in their home district for now, Paoliceli said it is possible that the department will be called upon again to help either in ground zero or assisting any one of the stations in and around New York City.
"There is a good possibility that we will be called again and we will help," he said. "Our department is also offering critical incident stress debriefment, and that's for all members who want to talk to someone about what they dealt with."
The fire department also helped set up a drop-off station for donations with the Red Cross at 195 Willis Ave. in Mineola, south of the Hempstead Turnpike at the Red Cross Center.
