A total of 17 people and 10 pets were rescued from Fire Island on Tuesday, after Hurricane Sandy swept across the region and left a trail of devastation in her wake.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone reported that the Fire Island rescue, which brought residents of Cherry Grove and their pets to safety, was coordinated with the Suffolk County police department, Islip Town, search and rescue teams, FINS, and the United States Coast Guard.
In addition, the county conducted an air surveillance operation over Fire Island to assess damage and needs. In other news, all county roads were cleared on Tuesday by the Suffolk County Department of Public Works, except for County Road 67, as requested by the Suffolk County Police Department.
Bellone has directed the Suffolk County DPW crews to work with towns and assist with tree removal to expedite the process.
Suffolk County is also working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to secure emergency meals and distribution.
The National Guard, Bellone said, worked hand-in-hand with county officals to ensure residents in flooded areas did not return to their homes before high tide on Tuesday; in addition, the National Guard and other military assets have been deployed to the area.
Residents across Suffolk County, Bellone said, flocked to county shelters, which were manned with the help of Red Cross volunteers during Hurricane Sandy: At the height of the storm, over 1800 were safely sheltered.
In other updates:
- Suffolk County bus transportation is suspended for Wednesday.
- Suffolk County Parks remain closed until further notice.
- Suffolk County Health Centers open on Wednesday include locations in Shirley, Riverhead, Southampton and the Riverhead Mental Health Clinic. Patients should call their respective clinics, to confirm that the clinics are open.
- Suffolk County facilities closed Wednesday include the North County Complex, legislative building, civil service building, labor department, cepartment of health services, telecommunications division, and the methadone clinic. Suffolk County employees should follow the directives of their department heads.
I had several local officials in Mississippi, who had gone door to door before Katrina asking people to evacuate, tell me they got frantic calls during height of the hurricane from some of those people who thought they knew better and stayed, only to find themselves trapped in their attics by the surge. The officials had to tell them there was no way they could be reached as everything was flooded. They told me those callers died. Their scared voices haunt the officials who had to speak with them, but they said they knew that anyone they sent out to attempt a rescue would have been killed also. It would have been murder to have sent anyone out. It is up to all citizens to heed evacuation warnings and plan accordingly, for themselves - and their pets. Find a hotel room, go to friends or family, look for a shelter that will accept crated pets, and some do as recent pictures have been showing. There are options. Those that don't look into them and aren't prepared are stupid. No other way around it.
But consider this--there are many infirm people - some extremely old, who simply canNOT move well, who are housebound, live in a degree of pain perhaps your brain simply cannot grasp and consider themselves simply unable to survive outside of their own small spaces. The very thought of evacuating --to them--would be in itself a death sentence. They'd rather stay and hope to survive, or die. It really boils down to that. I read so many stories about people who felt this way during Katrina. They gave up--knowing there was no place for them to go if they lost their homes so they did not wish to go on anyway. Perhaps the concept is foreign to you because you cannot put yourself inside their minds or in their shoes. So unless you've walked a mile in their shoes, you cannot judge them. All of this judgment and name-calling such as 'stupid' --making assumptions that all people are hale and hearty and able to be 'prepared' ahead of time or own cars or are physically able to 'pack up' and just take off for someone else's home or be able to afford a hotel room or even GET to one is, in my own personal opinion, what constitutes real and unthinking 'stupidity', no way around it. Just MY personal opinion.
If we really want to avoid unnecessary rescues, we should put in place some plan to provide shelter to pets as well. I wonder how many of those Fire Island folks would have stayed put had that option been available. People won't abandon their pets. Emergency services should take this reality into consideration when planning for catastrophes.
IF you're a first responder, then it's the JOB you chose to do! You didn't sign up TO pick and choose just which 'deserving' person you were going to rescue. Your job is to save lives, period! If you don't want to do yours, then quit, get the hell out--there'll be a thousand other genuinely compassionate souls waiting to fill your spot--who DON'T make judgments on whether a life is WORTH rescuing. People do stupid things every day--hiking into mountains unprepared and falling down them. Helicopters, climbers, rescuers go in and bring them out. Boaters do incredibly stupid things every single day, bucking the tides --including BWI's, and yet the Coast Guard is out there AT RISK rescuing them. Yet you'd blame some poor soul who is terrified to death of a major storm bearing down on them and ONLY wants to stay put inside the only security they've ever known for 'risking' the lives of first responders? Stay home then. DON'T risk your lives. Who the hell needs you? The next team will go out--whether it's to a drunk driver crashing his car into a power line with the electricity dancing all over the highway or some maniac with a gun. You like THAT better? Or other drunks narrowly missing mowing him down? Maybe so...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/katrinas-animal-rescue/introduction/2561/
You have no compassion and to call people stupid... you might want to count yourself among the masses you choose to label as such.