Crime & Safety

Sayville FD on Life Emergency Response as Sandy Finally Arrives

Local fire responders not handling non-life threatening situations as evening arrives and storm surges taking place.

If a tree falls and presents no danger, or your basement is flooding but you're safe, you'll need to wait until the dangerous winds have subsided for local fire department response.

The Sayville Fire Department is now only handling life-emergency scenarios given the high wind speeds as Hurricane Sandy arrives on the south shore.

"We've been on stand by all day and I just ceased all non-life threatening incident response," Chief Tom Pantano told Patch in a text message as evening arrived.

Find out what's happening in Sayville-Bayportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Pantano told Patch that all low lying areas south of Sayville were under an evacuation order.

"The storm surge is now at 15 feet," he stated in a text. Expectations yesterday had surges possibly reaching 11 feet.

Find out what's happening in Sayville-Bayportwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

At a briefing yesterday the chief stated fire volunteers would not respond in situations where winds were 50mph for members' safety sake and asked residents not to visit low lying flooded areas to avoid creating hazardous conditions on roadways or situations near docks and beaches that may result in emergency response needs.


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