The Beach Haven Volunteer Fire Co., Ocean County’s oldest fire department, which is proudly celebrating its 130th anniversary this month, outshone its own dedication to the community when its devoted crewmembers put their own livelihoods on hold to provide for others during Superstorm Sandy. While housed at the Engleside Inn, where conditions were safer than at the firehouse on South Bay Avenue in downtown Beach Haven, the team rescued more than 100 people from Beach Haven borough and Long Beach Township.
“In the heat of the moment, you weren’t really thinking about much other than getting these people out of their houses and to safe ground,” said Matt Letts, Beach Haven fire chief, who comes from a family of volunteer firefighters going back more than 100 years.
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| Photo by Ryan Morrill Beach Haven Fire Chief, Matt Letts, is still displaced from his home nearly 6 months after Superstorm Sandy. He said he hopes he doesn't have to leave the area to find a new place to live, and thus, a new place to work. |
In the midst of the crewmembers’ heroic actions, their own firehouse was heavily damaged. Much of the department’s equipment was ruined when 4 feet of floodwater came rushing into the building.
“Everything lived in the ocean for a night,” said Letts.
The department lost a fire truck right after the storm. It is currently borrowing a 1989, 1,000-gallon pumper truck from a West Virginia fire company until a new one can be purchased. The other trucks have been in and out of the shop getting fixed after a long and busy season.
But new-fangled fire trucks are the least of the fire company’s worries right now. Having able-bodied volunteer firefighters who live in the area and can quickly respond to emergencies is the bigger issue. Many of the members’ homes were hard hit during the storm; some lost everything. Nearly a third of the department’s active crew is still displaced.
Those still searching for a year-round residence are hoping to find a place on the Island so they can continue volunteering at the firehouse, a job they agreed they all share a great deal of passion for. But many of them said rent on the Island is unaffordable, and they may have to give up their role at the fire department and move to the mainland, or out of state.
“We found places that are year ’round, but they’re crazy expensive,” said Letts. “Places that were $1,200 or $1,300 bucks last year are $1,800 bucks now. I wouldn’t like to think that people are price gouging around here, but read between the lines.”
Letts, who has also worked as an EMT for the past 14 years, has been bouncing around the Island ever since the storm flooded his rental home in Beach Haven. He recently moved into the second floor of a duplex home in town where his brother, Lewie Letts, assistant deputy of the Beach Haven Fire Co. and who was also displaced, lived before finding a year-round residence and moving out. Matt Letts has until the end of the month to find another place to stay before the owners’ summer renters move in. If he cannot find a place in town, he said, he has options in Pennsylvania that he may be forced to accept.
“There’s a lot of people who are willing to help out, that would love to, but their places aren’t ready, or they don’t have anywhere, but they’re trying to help us find places,” said Letts. “Then there’s the other ones with second, third, fourth, or fifth homes who have summer rentals coming up, and they don’t care.
“They figure they can get $1,500 a month, or $1,500 a week. In a way, I can’t say I blame them. In another way, since I’m on the other end of the deal, it just kind of irks me a little bit because there’s people that know you’re first responders, or have been a staple in this town for years, and have nowhere to go. What they don’t understand is we’re a 100 percent volunteer fire department. Without volunteers, you’re not going to get your free fire protection that you’ve been getting for 130 years,” he added.
The Beach Haven fire department responds to all kinds of urgent calls, including fires, water rescues, gas leaks, carbon monoxide alarms and fire alarms. The department covers the Island’s largest areas, from Beach Haven borough through the southern part of Long Beach Township. Taking a few men out of the equation would mean fewer people to respond to emergencies, which would hurt the community, Letts said. Without enough volunteers, the town would be forced to hire firefighters, which would increase tax rates, he added.
“Then you have guys that are paid that are here because it’s a job, not because they want to be here,” said Letts. “In the beginning they want to be here, but after a few years the novelty wears off, and then it’s just another job.”
While the bond among the Beach Haven firefighters has always been tight, Letts said, it has grown even stronger since the storm. Although the crew received critical-incident stress debriefing to help them deal with the emotional strain of the storm, they also have relied on each other to talk, cry and laugh. They even have helped to repair each others’ homes and have participated in the cleanups in other areas throughout the state.
“For anybody, it’s horrible that this happened, that things got destroyed,” said Letts. “But when you add that extra bit on there of being out in literally 6 feet of water, rescuing people while transformers are blowing up and electrical wires are down, it’ll take its toll on you.
“There’s a lot of stuff that we all as a department have not forgotten about, but kind of hid in the back of our brains from the storm. Most of us spent two weeks together in the Island’s worst to be here for each other, and support each other, and watch each others’ backs no matter what we were doing. There were days of no sleep, no water, no toilets, no showers. These guys put themselves before the community. Many of these people have been on the Island their whole lives; their families have been on the Island their whole lives. It’s unfortunate because if those people have to leave, then you’re losing roots of this Island.”
Tim Nandy, who grew up surfing on LBI during the summers and began volunteering as a firefighter at the Beach Haven Fire Co. four years ago, was forced to leave his Beach Haven residence on Dock Road after almost 4 feet of floodwater came rushing into his home during the storm.
“That house is probably slated for demolition. It’s got a condemned sticker in the window, and I think they’re trying to knock it down, which is kind of a shame because it’s an old house,” he said.
Nandy temporarily moved into a duplex home a few houses down the street from where he used to live. He’s currently living on the second floor of the home since the first floor suffered from about 30 inches of floodwater damage. He is set to move downstairs as soon as the repairs are completed.
“I’ve got a place to stay, but I’m not at home yet,” he said. “It’s scary because we weren’t sure if we were going to have all of our membership. It’s tough to recruit people as it is and to have people stay on board with us because we’re volunteer.”
Nandy said the area’s high cost of living has always been a major factor in determining whether or not people continue to volunteer at the firehouse, especially younger folks.
Living so close to the fire department means Nandy, who said he does not own a car because he does not need one, can make the first truck during emergencies. This is especially helpful during the off-season when lifeguards are not on duty, he noted.
“When the call comes, we show up. If this whole thing happens again next year, we’ll do it over again. We’ll take what comes, and we’ll deal with it: good, bad, or indifferent.”
Until then, Letts said, he and the other displaced firefighters are just hoping to find a place to rent for a reasonable price so they can get back on their feet, “a sense of security, basically.” Letts said he is hoping to find a place to stay for at least a year.
“We’re volunteer; we do this not because we have to, not because someone told us to, because we take pride in our community, we care about our community,” he said. “We’ll come out when it’s snowing out, or when it’s flooded out, for a dead battery in a smoke detector. People take that for granted.
“Think about it if nobody was here to answer just that stupid dead battery call, or the 1 o’clock house fire in July when it’s 110 degrees outside. You got to think about who would take our spot if we weren’t here. It really takes a special person to do this. It’s very physically demanding. It takes time away from your families and from holidays. We get up in the middle of the night, and we don’t complain because that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to take.”
– Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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