By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Earlier this summer, a 33-year-old man who had allegedly just killed his mother and sister set off an explosion in his Queens home amid a violent standoff with police. <\/p>\n
The July 25 incident, which resulted in the man being shot by cops, displaced more than two dozen residents on the isolated residential street of Ocean Crest Boulevard in Far Rockaway. <\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the chaotic scene, local officials took issue with the city\u2019s management of the chaos and the lack of assistance given to local victims. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a number of families that were impacted, and the response felt very scattered, and the resources very bare,\u201d said local Queens Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers on Wednesday. \u201cOn the ground we didn’t feel the response. Obviously, FDNY and PD were there, but in terms of an effort to address the crisis at that moment on the ground, at the magnitude that was felt by the people impacted, that was not present.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brooks-Powers\u2019 remarks came during a City Council hearing held Wednesday intended to gather more information about the city\u2019s ability to respond to emergencies in its most isolated and far-flung communities, like the Rockaways in Southeast Queens. <\/p>\n
She said the July incident is an example of the broader logistical problems that arise when the city attempts to respond to crises in an isolated and resource-strapped community. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur far-reaching neighborhoods of our outer boroughs can present challenges for first responders and other city entities that provide support services at the scene of emergencies,\u201d said Rockaway\u2019s other councilmember, Joann Ariola. \u201cA central component to a well-functioning city is a local government that prioritizes the prompt, effective and efficient provision of emergency services to its residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The incident in July served as evidence of that resource gap, the councilmembers said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt raised the concern once again, in terms of what type of resources exist for geographically isolated communities such as the Rockaways,\u201d Brooks-Powers said. \u201cWe depend on mainland resources to be able to get to us.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Far Rockaway and Southeast Queens representative said that the chaos of the scene, which was simultaneously a shooting, a fire and a potential hostage situation, led to confusion between the various responding agencies. <\/p>\n
One family, a mom and five children, who lived upstairs from the scene, said they felt like hostages and struggled to get the resources they needed once the dust of the scene settled. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor a very long time, she and her kids were pretty much not permitted to leave their apartment upstairs, having to step over blood and dead bodies after,\u201d she said. \u201cTo this day, that constituent has felt like there has not been enough done for her and her family in terms of dealing with the trauma or treating them as the victims of what transpired.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the hearing held by the Committee on Fire and Emergency Management on Wednesday, the city Office of Emergency Management and the FDNY defended the response, but admitted it was a complicated situation. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s my understanding that the Red Cross was dispatched earlier, since it was an active crime scene and there were other things going on,\u201d said NYCEM Commissioner Christina Farrell. \u201cThey were not able to access the property earlier in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can always do a better job of communicating,\u201d Farrell added.<\/p>\n
The agencies also admitted that the isolated nature of the Rockaways and other communities in the city do present certain challenges. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe isolation and limited access routes lead us to treat these areas as special cases to ensure residents remain safe, even if not directly impacted by a particular hazard,\u201d said Farrell. <\/p>\n
One of NYCEM\u2019s citywide incident coordinators eventually arrived at the scene, but Farrell said that on a typical Saturday afternoon, for instance, only three might be working and helping to coordinate responses citywide. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have limited resources, just the nature of the way we’re set up across the agency,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Fiscal Year 2027 budget includes funding for 10 additional citywide incident coordinators. Brooks-Powers suggested one should be specifically assigned to deal with emergencies in the Rockaways. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be good to have one designated, even though you have one for the borough, because realistically, to get from Astoria to Rockaway takes an extremely long time,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Rockaway\u2019s isolation from resources is most often tested during medical emergencies. <\/p>\n
Around 60 percent of EMS agencies nationwide report insufficient staffing to meet local needs, according to the New York State Senate. The city is no exception, experts say. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn New York, we do have an issue with retention,\u201d said Chief of EMS Operations Paul Miano. \u201cWe are below headcount.\u201d <\/p>\n
In 2025, EMS\u2019 average response times to the most serious, life-threatening medical emergencies increased by nearly two minutes compared to the year prior, according to the mayor\u2019s management report.<\/p>\n
While response times in the peninsula are lower than the citywide average, according to the department, the number of available ambulances can cause difficulties. <\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t a trauma center in the Rockaways, so if ambulances are busy taking a patient to mainland Queens, Brooklyn or Long Island, it could take longer for one to become available. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are moments where we don’t have an ambulance on the peninsula because if there’s a trauma incident, they have to go out to Cohen\u2019s [Children\u2019s Hospital] or to Jamaica Hospital and they get called in that area, it takes even longer to come back to the peninsula,\u201d said Brooks-Powers. <\/p>\n
To counter the delays, EMS said they use \u201credeployment,\u201d which means if an ambulance leaves the Rockaways to bring a patient to a mainland hospital, it is deployed back to the peninsula rather than around the hospital where it delivered the patient.<\/p>\n
Ariola, who chairs the committee, said the city needs to do more to pay and fund EMS. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe need for this administration to really focus on EMS and on FDNY, but specifically EMS to make sure that they are getting a living wage, so that you can retain people in EMS and you can put more ambulances on the street,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause without EMS workers there, are them leaving for better jobs, whether it’s the fire department or the the sanitation or to the private sector, you can’t put the ambulances out, and if the ambulances can’t get out, they can’t get to Arverne, and they’re not getting to Breezy Point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ariola currently has a bill in the Council that would help notify New Yorkers when ambulances are delayed or unavailable. <\/p>\n
The Minutes Matter bill would require the city to send out a notification whenever FDNY and EMS are experiencing a backlog and don\u2019t have enough ambulances to respond to emergency calls.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are dozens of emergency calls sitting in a queue because there simply aren\u2019t enough ambulances available to answer them, New Yorkers have a right to know,\u201d Ariola said earlier this year. \u201cWe issue alerts for severe weather, air quality, flooding and other emergencies because information allows people to make better decisions. An EMS backlog should be no different.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Earlier this summer, a 33-year-old man who had allegedly just killed his mother and sister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-362292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}