Residents at San Simeon by the Sound are wheeled to waiting buses Monday. (Credit: Jim Willse)
The 911 call came in at 4:30 a.m. Monday. A nor’easter was ripping across the North Fork with winds gusting to 60 miles an hour and downed trees and flooding blocking roads.
Most people were holed up at home, hoping the power held. But for the first responders, there was no choice but to race to the San Simeon nursing home in Greenport after smoke was reported billowing through the facility. If you’re a volunteer firefighter in Greenport, East Marion, Mattituck, Southold or Cutchogue, you don’t check the weather app. You grab your gear. You go.
And they did. Fire and ambulance crews from more than a dozen departments, some from as far away as Flanders and Wading River, converged on County Road 48. Emergency lights cut through the pitch-black night.
The firefighters entered to find serious smoke conditions and the smell of burning electrical from what turned out to be a malfunctioning HVAC system. By the time gray light broke through the storm around 6 a.m., they had evacuated 27 residents from the facility’s smoke-filled west wing. Seven residents on oxygen were rushed to hospitals. Nine more were moved to Peconic Landing.
Then things got worse. Inspectors discovered that the nursing home’s fire suppression system wasn’t working. Neither were the alarms. The state Health Department ordered the entire facility be evacuated — including all 111 residents. So first responders went back and did it again.
That evening, as the storm finally began to peter out, emergency crews loaded residents — many in wheelchairs — onto buses and ambulances bound for safe locations across the East End.
Deanna Horton waited for her mother-in-law to board one of the buses. She didn’t know where they were taking her, just that she’d be safe.
That’s trust. The kind you don’t think about until it’s tested. There are hard questions ahead about San Simeon. A failed fire suppression system and silent alarms aren’t small details. Families trust these facilities with their loved ones. That trust has to mean something.
Those answers will come. They have to. But Monday wasn’t about blame. It was about catching people before they fell.
That’s the thing about small communities: When something goes wrong, there’s nowhere to hide, but you’re also never alone. The same fire chiefs, EMTs and hospital staff you see at the grocery store or Little League are the ones who show up when everything falls apart. The heroic response reminds us what this place is made of.
When 111 vulnerable people needed help in the middle of a nor’easter, the North Fork didn’t just talk about community. It proved it.