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Letter to The Editor:
This last week things went horribly wrong for the people of the City of Yonkers, when a routine construction project to increase fiber optic cable supply in our region ruptured one of the most important water mains serving New Yorks fourth most populous city.
Over 50,000 Yonkers residents were without water for days. Two of our citys hospitals, St. Josephs Medical Center and St. Johns Riverside Hospital, lacked water to run critical equipment, cooling and air conditioning systems, operate toilets and more. Businesses were shut and employees told to stay home until the emergency was over. This was not just an inconvenience, but rather a crisis that paralyzed many parts of the city.
In its wake Yonkers Firefighters were left with no choice but to devise several emergency mobile water delivery plans. Firefighters recognized having no water or water pressure with which to fight fires was a danger.
The 36 inch water main rupture impacted one of the most densely populated areas of the city, including our hospitals. How could firefighters battle a major fire without any water?
Assistant Fire Chief Edward Cucolo, who was heavily involved in the oversight of the citys water supply problems, told WPIX TV, The situation that presented to us with the lack of water, I mean, we could have another Great Chicago Fire here.
Acting quickly with the permission of the New York City Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) firefighters from YFD Engine 312 traveled to Riverdale to feed at least some water from the New York City system at our shared border with the Bronx, into the Yonkers hydrant supply network.
Engine 312, which has been targeted by the Spano Administration for closure, immediately went to work at this task. It is one of the few fire companies in our city with the equipment necessary to extract water from 5 inch diameter fire pumps, so it could be fed as an emergency supply into the depleted Yonkers system.
Our firefighters have been trained to deal with the unexpected crisis and be capable of improvising in emergencies in order to protect life and property. Yonkers Firefighters are the safety net that more than 200,000 of our citizens depend on. To meet the anticipated need for additional fire companies to be on the ready, the Mayor and Fire Department leadership authorized emergency steps, adding three pumper trucks and one ladder truck.
The amount of water needed to fight a fire is astounding, with each hose line putting out 200 gallons of water a minute, and a pumper truck capacity of only 500 gallons. As significant structural fires can require 500,000 to 1 million gallons of water just to extinguish and cool a fire, it was clear our citys total pumper truck capacity of about 6,000 gallons was insufficient.
Firefighters prepared to initiate a backup emergency mobile water delivery system that, if needed, had the capacity to stretch and deliver water up to a distance of two miles inside our city, essentially interconnecting all of its fire trucks and hose capacity much like a conga line.
Moving water in a makeshift manner up to two miles presents a significant problem, especially in such a densely populated and hilly city. The science of hydraulics teaches firefighters that the pressure fire trucks would need to generate in order to propel the water over such great distance would be too much for standard fire hoses to manage and could result in a supply line rupture, which we could never risk. So instead firefighters readied to deploy Large Diameter Hose (LDH), a plastic-like collapsible hose that when filled with water looks like a pipe, in order to handle the higher water pressure requirements.
The emergency facing the city has now passed, so why is it important that the citizens of Yonkers know these facts? Well for anyone that has purchased a life or car insurance policy, dont we want to know that the company that stands behind that policy and protection is as solid as a rock? Dont we want to make sure they will be the safety net to protect us in our time of need? Indeed we do.
This past weeks crisis showed clearly that Yonkers Firefighters were ready and able to preserve and protect life, even facing a worst case scenario. Knowing this should be reassuring to every family, business and property owner invested in the City of Yonkers.
Barry McGoey is president of Yonkers Firefighters Local 628.
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