The department’s membership totals approximately 50, all volunteers, with an active core of 25-30 EMT’s, firefighters, and fire police. “We’re always looking for more people,” Marc said. “We’re lucky to have a lot of young guys, but we lose them to college. Our call volume seems to be going up. We run probably average about 300-325 a year, where not so long ago it was half that number.”
He recalled the recent storms: “Actually, Sandy was quiet for Tivoli; we were spared, thankfully. We were on standby for two hours and got a couple of calls. We sent four guys down to Long Island, including myself, to help out for four days. For Irene, we were on standby from 4am to midnight that day, and we ran approximately 50 calls throughout that time, mainly trees and wires down, flooding, closed roads. Our department is one of the few that still do residential pump-outs, but it depends on resources.”
Marc’s advice to the public: “For storms, be prepared. If you know your house has flooding issues, you can handle yourself. Gas-powered sump pumps or small generators totally eliminate the burden on local fire departments. We’ve had 40 pump-outs alone in a 12- to 15-hour time period. It’s very stressful and dangerous. You don’t know if the electricity pops on or surges when you’re pumping out.”
He added, “Make sure you have food and water and spare oxygen if you use it. Have some sort of plan in place. We seem to be getting bigger storms where you’re out of power for a week or two. Staying off the road is a good idea if there’s a state of emergency. We have to be on the road with the fire trucks.”
With all their assets and all their energy, the fire leaders still want to encourage residents to join their fight.
“We’d love people to come down and volunteer,” said Tim. “There are some physical limitations to becoming active interior firefighters, but we need EMT’s and paramedics also, and the Ladies Auxiliary does a lot of work.”
Al added, “People don’t want to be an interior firefighter; it is demanding and… dangerous. However, when we’re at the scene of a house fire, there are hundreds of jobs that need to be done, and only four or five are interior firefighting. We need people to run pumps, raise ladders, pull hose, direct traffic, EMTs. If all those don’t get done, the four or five jobs inside can’t get done.”
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