Flatbush Avenue was pitch black. All the streetlights were out. There were downed trees and power lines everywhere. Up ahead, the tollbooth on Marine Parkway Bridge was dark. Crossing over to the Rockaway Peninsula, looking east, New York City firefighter James McDermott '05 saw an orange glow: Belle Harbor. To the west, in the direction of the Breezy Point neighborhood, it looked like the horizon was on fire. McDermott turned FDNY Ladder 702 toward Breezy Point.

It was the night of Oct. 29, 2012. Hurricane Sandy had been pummeling the coastline all day. When McDermott and the other firefighters reached the Queens neighborhood, more than 70 homes—beach bungalows built close, one after another—had already burned to their foundations. Whole blocks were completely leveled. Flames were licking the air, jumping from house to house to house. Water was flowing into the streets from broken sinks, toilets, waterlines. The fire hydrants had little to no water pressure. Some were under water.

"There wasn't a heck of a lot of fire to put out at that point. With the wind speed, and the close proximity of the homes, it wasn't hard for the fire to move from one little bungalow to the next," says McDermott, a five-year veteran of the Rockaway Park Fire Department, assigned to Ladder 137. "With the wind, and the hand lines we were using, the water would just dissipate."

The day and night of the storm, McDermott was working with L702, located between the Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay, not far from Breezy Point, answering reports of downed power lines, people trapped in their homes, and flooded basements, some several feet of deep.

L702 is one of the volunteer fire departments on the Rockaways. Ironically, McDermott describes it as a company that is only called into service during severe storms and other disasters.

That morning, high tide had risen in some areas to about 18 inches above street level. The wind was blowing at 70, 80 miles an hour, whipping the waves in the Atlantic up to 18 feet. In the bay, McDermott says, they were cresting between 10 and 12 feet high.

By 6 p.m., sea water was running down the street. Volunteer firefighters in Breezy Point had to abandon their flooded firehouses. The other fire companies were ordered to move to higher ground for fear of damage to fire trucks and equipment. (As it turned out, Ladder 137 was destroyed in the storm.)

"We'd had to relocate across the Marine Parkway Bridge into Brooklyn. The wind at this point was upwards of 80 miles an hour. Sand and debris was pelting the side of the fire truck. But once we made it to Brooklyn, we immediately started responding to emergencies. People trapped in their homes, sparking wires, wires down, and a structure fire.

"The volunteers deserve a lot of praise. They'd had to leave their firehouses, but when the fire started, even though they had to drive through several feet of water, they were able to get there and start fighting it," says McDermott.

The firefighters who'd left the peninsula knew there were people still trapped at Breezy Point because the storm surge came so quickly.

"I think in the back of a lot of guys' minds, there was the thought that a lot people might not have made it out," McDermott says. "We were all anxious to get back."

When the word finally came, the firefighters raced across the Marine Parkway Bridge, guided only by the orange glow from the fires that were burning down Breezy Point.

L702 was one of the first fire departments to reach the scene. Standing in as much as three feet of water, they started laying hose, trying to position themselves between the massive field of fire and the homes that were still standing, working with the volunteer firefighters to prevent the flames from spreading further. When other companies arrived, they began drafting water out of the streets. Some homes were saved. One-hundred and twenty-six were completely destroyed.

"It wasn't like any other fire I've ever had to fight in the sense that usually a fire is contained in a dwelling and you're going in to fight it, to search for life, to conduct a rescue," says McDermott, whose shift ended 33 hours after it began. "This was different because there wasn't anything to fight. The homes were gone, right down to their foundations. They were just smoldering ruins." ~