FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com JANUARY 3, 2013 •THE QUEENS COURIER 9 persons of the year s With 2012 behind us, COURAGEinsave, and help rebuild, lives. isThe Queens CourierPROFILES paying tribute to the First Responders — those They have earned our respect and admiration, men and women who put their lives on the line and a debt of gratitude. Here are some of their every day, and who braved Sandy’s wrath to stories . . . West Hamilton Beach Volunteer Fire Department: There during Sandy, with a STORM OF SUPPORT of the West HamiltonJonah Cohen, chiefments across the country steppedcall or done assessing the damage,BY TERENCE M. CULLEN [email protected] Cohen said they were relieved by in to donate equipment. Beach Volunteer Fire others to focus on the destruction In one corner, there is a colos- Department, said Volunteer Fire Department sta- done to their own homes. sal truck with both “FDNY” life was getting backThe West Hamilton Beach “Anybody who lives in the area logos and emblems bearing the to normal at the fi re tion house is on a strip of land that isn’t far from the water. had damage to their homes,” he shape of Louisiana. Cohen, house after the build- So when the storm surge from ing took on seven feetpointing out how remarkablesaid. “They dealt with it that night, Sandy started to rise up in the and then when they found out the truck is in size and condi- of water during Sandy. what damage was done to their tion, explained it had gone hamlet on Jamaica Bay, it brought seven feet of water into the fi re- own homes, they basically needed back and forth between the to take care of business.” two states after Hurricane house where eight volunteers — fi ve fi refi ghters and three EMTs Without any life-saving equip- Katrina and was donated to ment, the West Hamilton Beach help after Sandy. — were on duty. The residents of Hamilton Beach, Volunteer Fire Department did Today, calls are back to nor- what it could as fi rst responders. mal at the fi re department, with which is in Zone A, had evacu- ated for the most part, according They took in and distributed clean- some days busy and others quiet. ing supplies, clothing and food. “The emergency calls are still to Jonah Cohen, the chief. But those who stayed needed to be “The day after, and for over normal,” he said. “Some days we a month, that’s what we were have a lot; some days are very rescued. With their trucks damaged by the fl ooding and no way to walk doing was handing out different light. It’s like every- products for the people who were thing else.” through, the fi re department had to improvise to save lives. here that were trying to clean up their homes and of course to feed “We used a boat that was donat- ed to us last year for Hurricane them,” said Cohen. Reconstruction is well under- Irene,” Cohen said. The boat res- cued two people who remained way. To the east of the fi rehouse, the rail tracks of the A line are at the fi restation until the waters receded. being repaired. To the west, just down Davenport Court Road, Though that was the sole mis- sion that October night, accord- there’s the wooden frame of a house that will soon be built. ing to Cohen, the fi re department waited for the water to recede The fi rehouse parking lot, underwater during Sandy, the windshields of the fi re trucks THE COURIER/Photo by Terence M. Cullenis once again fi lled withfi re trucks and ambulanc-es. While some bear theold “West HamiltonBeach Volunteer FireDepartment” emblem,names as “Berlin”a testament to theFive members of the fi re depart- around 11 p.m. The next day, they assessed the damage: Three fi re trucks, a chief’s car, two per- sonal cars and one ambulance were damaged by Sandy. Lines on marked how high the water rose. others, bear such ment live in the neighborhood from Pennsylvania, and had to cope with the storm on two fronts. Once they were off- fact that fi re depart-
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