Firefighters Set Up Emergency Shelter At Quaker Ridge School

When Village personnel heard about the oncoming storm and the possibility of record rainfalls and local flooding they realized that Scarsdale residents could need a storm shelter. DPW Superintendent Benny Salanitro contacted the local American Red Cross (ARC) on Friday to say that Scarsdale planned to establish a shelter at the Quaker Ridge Elementary School, and the Red Cross agreed to help. The Village provided this information to Westchester County’s Emergency Operations Center and included it in the Village’s storm preparation communications to residents. The Red Cross made 50 cots available, and these cots were picked up by the Scarsdale Highway Department and delivered to Quaker Ridge School on Saturday. The Red Cross promised to send representatives to staff the shelter along with food, water and supplies. For unknown reasons they failed to deliver staff or supplies, and on Saturday afternoon the Fire Department faced the possibility of not opening the shelter at all. That’s when the volunteer firefighters stepped in at the last minute and took control.

Scarsdale’s volunteer firefighters and career firefighters set up the cots in the shelter, opened the doors, and staffed it from 6pm Saturday until 1pm Sunday,

when the last evacuees left. This meant that several volunteers slept at the shelter, leaving their homes and families vulnerable to the storm. Since ARC failed to deliver food the Village was faced with a real dilemma, especially since most stores and restaurants were closed for the storm. The Scarsdale Fire Department donated water that was originally intended to be available to first responders and the Scarsdale PBA generously donated a tray of sandwiches that they had ordered in advance of the storm. Some of the volunteers went out and purchased bagels on Sunday morning, laying out their own money (they will be reimbursed by the Village), and volunteer Larry Price went to his house to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when a hungry young girl arrived at the shelter at 9 pm on Saturday night.

As Benny Salanitro put it “the volunteers did a yeoman’s job, and without them stepping up to the plate there would have been no shelter – period”. Thanks to their willingness to jump in 15 people were able to seek shelter from the storm, including eight Scarsdale residents.

(Pictured at top: Volunteer Firefighters Jeff Hill, Company #1 and Jeff Koslowsky, Company#3)