Oct. 30--VENTOR -- There was a moment a year ago as Sandy was already sending water through the town when the firefighters on Ventnor's second platoon realized the depths of their own predicaments.
"Phil, me, Flynn, Joe Callahan, we're seeing the water level rise," recalled Capt. Michael Cahill of the Ventnor City Fire Department. "And we're saying to each other, if it's this high, it's got to be in our living rooms."
And it was, pretty much. Half of Ventnor's 42 firefighters had homes damaged in the storm. And a year after a day the firefighters would, actually, rather not think that much about, Cahill and the others on his shift got off at 8 a.m. and figured they had to do something.
And so, after dropping kids off at school and other assorted dad errands, they gathered at the bar at -- where else but -- trusty Robert's in nearby Margate, a friendly enough place at that hour.
"This time last year we were all chest deep in water, walking around the town, trying to deal with issues," said Cahill, 46, father of four whose family was displaced for five weeks, relegated to the upstairs of their home for months, and who still needs to elevate his home in Ventnor Heights.
"I've been thinking about this coming up for a couple of weeks," he said. "I was hoping the ocean gets cold first [so there would be no storms]. I'm just tired of it."
Cahill is a veteran of Katrina, of 9/11, of traveling to other places to help out after disasters. But Sandy struck him and the others in this Jersey Shore town a different way: Even as they were called upon to do the waterlogged heroics of the job, their own homes and families were being deluged.
"You push away your own stuff," said Kevin Flynn, a firefighter also at Robert's Place on Tuesday morning. "You leave your own stuff and go help everybody else."
And so they did, even as they responded to call after call with flood waters rising, cars bursting into flames ignited by seawater, several building fires, people panicking as the high tides approached and asking to be evacuated, the only vehicle able to get down Dorset Avenue in four feet of water, a city public works dump truck.
They piled 10 guys into the back of the dump truck, loaded the hoses and set out to the low-lying streets of Ventnor Heights, a scene of disaster, but also of familiarity.
"It's your neighbor, your friend, your relative, everybody's calling us," said Ventnor Fire Chief John Hazlett, over at the Newport Avenue fire station, a place that had not flooded in a hundred years but which took in two feet of water during Sandy.
All the stories the old timers ever told -- the storm of '62, the hurricane of '44, they always ended with, "And not a drop of water in the firehouse."
But this generation's storm, Sandy, will carry a different lesson, the now familiar photos of fire engines with two feet of water around them, the Pathmark parking lot and Wellington Avenue looking like a river, epic photographs of Cahill and the others wading through four feet of water in the Heights in their fire gear, sometimes pushing a canoe or boat.
Nobody had chest waders a year ago; they do now. Then, the boots filled up with water immediately, and truly, nobody dried out for days. The calls were coming in from the Heights, and then from Philadelphia: "My dad is at this address, can you check on him?"
"We were constantly moving, trying to keep warm, nothing got dry," firefighter Tom Halpin said outside the firehouse at the change of shift Tuesday morning. Although his own home was undamaged, he sees the toll on his fellow firefighters. "I can see the guys are worn down by it," Halpin said. "I'm glad it's not happening again. I feel bad for everybody."
Hazlett, who just finally got the tarp off the damaged roof of his own home, said it took some time for reality to set in.
"It was an emotional toll," the chief said. "Sometimes I think it takes time to surface. You're beat up, fatigued, trying to deal with everything. The first week was total chaos. Things slow down a little bit, and you start dealing with your own problems. A lot of guys couldn't get the help they needed. It was very frustrating."
The night of Sandy still seems surreal. "We were driving down Dorset Avenue, vehicles are burning, cars and trucks are floating down the street, doors and trunks open, electric systems short-circuiting, docks floating by us. It was pitch dark. You couldn't see your hand. Cold water everywhere. You're almost thinking, how are we going to get over it? It was like Armageddon."
In the weeks after Sandy, the firefighters responded to 878 calls, many seeking pump outs of water from their homes.
But they were also dealing with their own ruined homes. And so they took on another task: helping the other guy.
Cahill, a builder, organized firefighters willing to help out at homes. Retired Ventnor Fire Chief Bert Sabo just starting showing up at people's homes, people's mother's homes, to pull sheet rock or do whatever needed to be done. A year later, the guys still are amazed at all the help the former chief gave them, all unsolicited.
Flynn, a heating and air contractor in addition to being a firefighter, started ordering units to replace the damaged ones, storing them in Cahill's garage.
Those who could afford to lay out the money started getting their homes back together.
Firefighter Phil Boyle, displaced until this month, managed to front the money to get his Oxford Avenue home elevated, with help from crews of his firefighters laying cement block foundation. Like everyone, the wait for outside help has been excruciating and mostly fruitless. "We're doing all the work on our own homes, also helping other people," Boyle said. "Mike's trying to get his family back in, then he's going to work on his wife's cousin's place, my place, his neighbor's place."
From down the bar Flynn added: "But if it wasn't for everybody else, who would be back in their house?"
"A year later, two things I know for sure," Cahill said, summing up for the others like the platoon boss he is. "One, I'm dry today. And two, I know who my friends are."
On a day of unremarkable weather, there was no official commemoration over at the Fire House on New Haven, in a town where people are still trying to get back to where they were and up to a third of the low-lying Heights is still unoccupied from after the storm.
Oct. 29, 2012, was a night where the wind came out of the North and West, not the Northeast they'd all been taught to fear. "It was a different wind than what we were worried about," Boyle said.
"It doesn't bring back good memories," Chief Hazlett said. "It's affected everyone on a personal level. It's something we'd all rather forget."
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