December 29, 2011 — EAST MEADOW HERALD
6
YEAR IN REVIEW March
Nearly 600 lose electricity after balloon hits power line According to Mark Gross, a spokesman for the Long Island Power Authority, at about 3:30 p.m. on Monday, a Mylar balloon made contact with a primary wire on a power line on Newbridge Road, at the border of East Meadow and Levittown. Mylar balloons, often used for birthday parties and corporate functions, are made of a metallic material that can create short circuits, and they have been known to cause outages when they strike power lines. “This is not the first time,” Gross said. LIPA reported that 588 customers in East Meadow lost power as a result of the balloon incident. Gross said that most customers had their power restored by 5:30 p.m. The East Meadow Fire Department, whose Station No. 3 was within feet of the downed wires, responded to the smoky scene, where broken wires sizzled on the pavement. EMFD Captain Bobby Salvesen of Ladder Co. No. 2 said he was concerned with the proximity of the hot wires to homes, cars, fences and hydrants. “Some people had to stay inside their homes,” Salvesen said. “Some had to get out.” Crews from LIPA worked through the evening to restore power and to safeguard the area from danger. Many neighbors along Newbridge Road were temporarily evacuated from their homes until LIPA and fire crews deemed them safe to return to. As they gathered behind caution tape at the scene, neighbors said, they saw a bright light that resembled a lightning
bolt. The balloon created such a surge, that it led to more downed wires less than a mile south on Newbridge Road, at the intersection of Hempstead Turnpike. Volunteers from the North Bellmore Fire Department were called to assist at that scene. Because of the hazardous conditions, police closed down the northbound lanes of Newbridge at the intersection of Bellmore Road. It remained closed through most of the evening rush hour, which led to snarled traffic across the community. No injuries were reported in the incident.
Town to install stop signs at site of fatal crash The approval of stop signs is often a routine task for the Hempstead Town Board. But one particular proposal had an emotional component, especially for the East Meadow School District community. In March, the town board unanimously passed a proposal to install two additional stop signs at the intersection of Salisbury Road and Bowling Green Drive — the site of an automobile accident in January that resulted in the death of a W.T. Clarke High School student. Though it is unknown whether the stop signs would have prevented it, the incident made it clear to civic leaders and town officials that it was time to take a closer look at the heavily used intersection. “It’s always a sad, sad thing,” said Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray. “Certainly when horrific crashes like that happen, there’s a certain tendency to look at stop signs in the area.” Murray and Councilman Gary Hudes — who represents Salisbury and East Meadow — received a request to implement a
four-way stop at the site. The intersection had stop signs on the north and south sides of Bowling Green Drive, but not on the east and west corners of Salisbury Road. Salisbury civic leader Helen Meittinis made the first request the night of the accident. Meittinis, the president of the Community Association of Stewart Avenue, promptly sent letters to town officials requesting a review of the intersection for potential stop signs. Her wish, shared by many residents on the block and in the community, was granted. “It’s a step in the right direction as far as public safety is concerned,” Meittinis said. “Sometimes it takes a tragedy to move you forward and to rectify the situation.” The residential streets are within walking distance of Clarke and Bowling Green Elementary School, and are heavily used by walkers and drivers during the week. Neighbors hope that the addition of the traffic signs, making the intersection a four-way stop, could prevent future incidents.
April
Health clinic opens in EM As she toured the new Veterans Health Clinic at Nassau University Medical Center a week before its official grand opening, Legislator Norma Gonsalves could hardly conceal her emotions. “You have no idea how excited I am,” the longtime East Meadow resident said. “Tears are coming to my eyes.” A few veterans sat quietly in the sparkling new lobby, waiting to be called on the fourth day of appointments at the clinic. The scene signaled the end of an 11-year effort that was anything but smooth for supporters of the clinic’s move from Plainview to more spacious confines in East Meadow. For veterans, namely members of East Meadow’s VFW Post No. 2736, it was Gonsalves’ tenacity and an unrelenting attitude that led them to the clinic’s long-awaited ribbon cutting on April 8 at Building Q of the NUMC. The veterans, led by Post Commander
Sal Pellegrino, 81, worked in tandem with the legislator, through years of ups and downs to open an upgraded, centrally located facility. Mainly because of his leadership to get a new V.A. Clinic, Pellegrino was the Herald’s Person of the Year in 2009. With members of VFW Post No. 2736, Pellegrino stood proudly at the grand opening, as the group sported T-shirts denoting the organization’s involvement and an expression of appreciation for Gonsalves’ efforts. The new 11,000 square-foot clinic is double the size of the previous center in Plainview, which was long criticized for its dilapidated condition and limited space. It includes more examination rooms and a state-of-the-art triage center for patients, as well as improved space for staff.
March
Local wins L.I. spelling title Naman Shakrani stood alone on stage at the Long Island Spelling Bee on March 10. The five finalists before him had taken their seats, each having misspelled a word. Judges told Shakrani, a 10-year-old from East Meadow, that if he spelled the next two words correctly, he would win the competition. With no questions asked, Naman spelled “perpend” and “noctograph.” With that, the W.T. Clarke Middle School sixth-grader was crowned the champion. “It was unbelievable,” said his mother, Bijal Shakrani, who, like his father, Kamlesh, is originally from India. Naman’s road to the stage at Plainview- Old Bethpage Middle School was remarkable, to say the least. He was a late bloomer as a baby, and did not speak until he was 26 months old. But he loved to read. By the time he was 4, he was in a program for gifted children and competed in his first spelling bee — which he won. He skipped parts of second and third grade at Meadowbrook Elementary School and entered Clarke as a 10-year-old. At the middle school, Naman’s spelling prowess took center stage. After school one afternoon, he nonchalantly told his parents that he had won a class spelling bee. “I said ‘OK, must be something going on in school,’” Bijal recalled. “Next thing I hear, we have a competition between all the winners in each grade.” Before the finals, Naman had about a month to study. The hard part was that there were about 500,000 possible words that could be asked from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. Studying the entire book would be impossible, said his father, as reading lists from just one letter of the alphabet could take a week. So the pair crafted their own training method. “We were running out of time,” Kamlesh said. “Our strategy was, what is the most difficult word on the page, and then let’s proceed.” Naman said he wasn’t nervous when he stepped up to the microphone for the first round of the finals. He stayed confident, even though the word, dogma, was unfamiliar to him. “I didn’t even see that word in the dictionary,” he said.
April
Heart attack victim revived at Aquatic Center in E.M. Volunteers from the East Meadow Fire Department, along with lifeguards from the Nassau County Aquatic Center, helped save a man who suffering from cardiac arrest in the facility’s fitness center one Sunday morning in April at about 9:57 a.m. On arrival, responders from EMFD Rescue Company No. 4, led by Lieutenant Giovanni Bautista, found the victim not breathing and without a pulse, officials said. According to the EMFD, lifeguards performed CPR and used a defibrillator in attempts to restart the man’s heart before crews arrived. EMFD technicians took over the CPR and resuscitation process and were able to restart his heart. According to EMFD Chief Carl Pugliese, the victim regained a pulse and heartbeat and began breathing on his own with oxygen assistance when he was loaded into the ambulance. The man was transported to Nassau University Medical Center, where officials said he was admitted into the Cardiac Care Unit. Firefighters lauded the efforts of the Aquatic Center staff that launched the rescue process. “It was a great effort on all involved — lifeguards, first responders and emergency room staff,” Pugliese said. “I’m proud of all the members of my department who responded to the scene and helped save the patient’s life.”