Long Beach firefighters rush to multiple emergencies during storm

Long Beach fire officials urged motorists to stay off the roads on Thursday as the first snowstorm of the year battered the South Shore with whipping winds and heavy blowing snow.

“Many roads are impassable for regular vehicles,” fire officials said on the Fire Department’s Facebook page. “When you get stuck, we get stuck. We’ve had to divert around multiple stuck vehicles and busses on the way to emergencies. Please don’t make our jobs any harder.”

Fire Chief Joseph Miller told the Herald that firefighters and other emergency personnel responded to multiple emergency calls throughout the day.

“There’ve been a lot of calls for sparking wires and fire alarms going off, things you get with high winds,” he said. “The electricity keeps fluctuating, so a lot of alarms are going off because of that.”

Firefighters also rushed to the scene of an unstable building under construction at Georgia Avenue, Miller said, which he said was secured and being looked into by the Building Department.

“We had a call for an unstable building, and there was a carbon monoxide call in Atlantic Beach as well,” he said.

No injuries or major accidents were reported as of Thursday afternoon, Miller said. In addition to the Fire Department’s career unit, fire officials said that all volunteer firefighters were staffed at each “fire and rescue apparatus to ensure a safe and rapid response to all emergencies.”

The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the Long Beach and other parts of New York with estimated wind gusts of up to 30 to 50 mph. The predicted snowfall for Long Beach is between five and nine inches, according to the NWS, and the temperature could drop to as low as -5 degrees, with the wind chill factored in.

The agency said that travel was dangerous and that damage to trees and power lines had been reported. Total snow accumulations of 12 to 18 inches were expected in portions of southeast New York and southern Connecticut, and Governor Cuomo on Thursday issued a state of emergency for Long Island and other areas.

City Council President Anthony Eramo said on Wednesday that he was concerned about power outages due to wind gusts, and pipes freezing due to extremely low temperatures. PSEG reported Thursday afternoon that under 40 customers were without power on the barrier island, mainly in the North Park area.

“It’s pretty bad outside on Pine Street, near the MLK Center,” said resident Marcus Tinker. “Besides one person on Facebook, I haven’t heard about any other power outages. No flooding as of yet.”

The city deployed about 10 trucks to sand and salt the roads to make conditions safer for residents, Eramo said, adding that an additional 61 pieces of equipment, including plows and payloaders, would be making sure streets are passable.

City crews were out in force Thursday making sure that Park Avenue, Broadway, West Beech Street, and the LIRR parking area were passable, and were working to clear secondary roads. Sanitation pickup would go forward as planned and City Hall and the Recreation Center would remain open with bus service running as scheduled, the city posted on its website.

Regular bus service was suspended until 4 p.m., the city posted on its website, and paratransit is canceled for the day while alternate side parking is suspended. Additionally, the Atlantic Beach Bridge closure scheduled for Friday has been canceled. The Long Island Rail Road said that it was experiencing system-wide delays averaging 30 to 45 minutes due to the weather, with some cancellations in Long Beach Thursday morning.

The National Weather Service also issued a coastal flood advisory for Long Beach until 2 p.m., though Miller and some residents did not report any major flooding.

“The wind is coming in right off the bay, so it’s possible there might be a little flooding at high tide,” said Canals resident Kevin Reilly who, like many residents, worked from home. "We had the lights flicker a few times, and we’re sort of waiting for the winds to stop.”

Reilly said that his street was first plowed at about 4 a.m.

“And they picked the up the trash today with the high wind,” he said. “I met the two sanitation guys -- these poor guys were hanging off the back of the truck. They said the cold wasn’t so much of an issue, but climbing over the snow drifts to get to the cans was a problem.”

Shore Road resident Amanda Kernozek said that she and her boyfriend, Eric Anderson, observed a number of drivers in the East End struggle in the snow near Franklin Boulevard, and witnessed at least three motorists get stuck within two hours.

“The wind is making it drift so there’s like snow piles in the middle of the road,” she said, adding that while one side of the street was passable, drivers quickly learned that the other was not. “My boyfriend went out and helped some guy who was stuck and about to leave his car, and Long Beach sanitation guys helped for a bit. Some other neighbor saw that the guy was stuck, and a Jeep came over and helped.”

Bridget Downes contributed to this story.