Residents want to reopen
FDNY company in LIC
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney addresses a crowd of Long Island City residents,
elected officials and members of the media in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio
to reinstate engine company 261.
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney joined
other lawmakers and Long Island
City residents Dec. 18 for a press conference
demanding the reinstatement
of Engine Company 261 — a Fire Department
unit disbanded during the
Bloomberg administration.
Maloney held the conference outside
the headquarters of Ladder Company
116. In 2003, then-Mayor Michael
Bloomberg closed the fire engine company
and replaced it with its current
ladder company during a citywide
thinning of firehouses amid budget
cuts. Since then, the cramped neighborhood
— now the most densely populated
area in the country — must depend
on a firehouse half a mile.
This is because ladder companies
and engine companies have two different
purposes. The job of an engine
company is to suppress fires with hoses
while ladder companies are utilized
more for search and rescue. During an
emergency, FDNY ladder company 116
must wait to get hoses from neighboring
firehouses.
“Our fire engine should never have
been moved in the first place,” said
Maloney.
On Dec. 17, Maloney said that sent a
letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and met
with him to discuss restoring Engine
261 to its full capacity. She referred to
the Bloomberg era cut as “a very bad
decision.”
“I think that the fire that we had recently
was a wake up call,” said Maloney,
referring to last week’s five-alarm
inferno on Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside.
“We know in a fire, seconds
matter and they can save lives.”
According to a 2015 community
health profile, Astoria and Long Island
City are home to about 201,400
people. Engine 261 was the designated
firehouse for Long Island
City and Roosevelt Island, which according
to 2010 U.S Census data, is
home to roughly 11,661 people. The
Roosevelt Island Bridge — the only
vehicular access point to the island
— connects with Vernon Boulevard
in Long Island City.
With the impeding arrival of Amazon
HQ2 and the resulting influx of
residents, Maloney and others said the
need for additional firehouse and fire
workers will only increase.
“It was Engine 261 that came when
my mom stopped breathing,” said
longtime Long Island City resident
Steve Morena. According to Morena,
it was the firehouse’s quick response
time that saved his mother’s life 25
years ago.
Not only do engine companies save
lives in fires, but they are also usually
first on the scene when an ambulance
is called. The members are trained to
perform life-saving techniques, and
have equipment to stabilize a patient
until EMS units arrive.
Without another engine unit in
Long Island City, Morena fears that
other families may not be so lucky in
the event of an emergency.
A City Council public hearing regarding
the potential reinstatement of
Engine 261 is expected to take place in
January 2019.
The Mayor’s office has yet to respond
to a request for comment.
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TIMESLEDGER,18 DEC. 28-JAN. 3, 2019 TIMESLEDGER.COM
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