Page 6 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • November 14, 2012 Wyckoff Wyckoff Township officials last week pledged to take in everything they heard from residents during and after Hurricane Sandy’s devastation to craft a plan of action for future disasters. High on the list, however, is to put pressure on the utility companies to get their act together, committeemen and residents agreed at a full-house meeting at town hall. Residents were upset because, a week after the storm, many of them still lacked electricity and internet services. Township officials said that they had done everything within their power but that relief efforts had stumbled over the lack of access or manpower at the two utility companies, Public Service Electric & Gas, and Orange & Rockland Electric, which supply Wyckoff customers. “Since the spring of 2010, we have had four events like this...” Wyckoff Township Committeeman Rudy Boonstra, a longterm volunteer firefighter, said of the storm and the long-term power outages that followed. “We have learned from each event Officials say residents should pressure utilities how to function better in terms of emergency response, communications and shelter but sometimes it seems that the utility companies haven’t learned anything at all.” Councilman Brian Scanlan agreed. “Nothing has changed. There has to be pressure from elected officials to get them to change. They are not organized. They do not have accurate communication. I can’t believe this is how they run a business,” Scanlan said. “We begged them for restoration tables so people at the end of the list could get out of town if they had to,” said Mayor Chris De Phillips. “They never provided it.” “We have to hold their feet to the fire,” said resident Susan Valente. Another resident suggested the utility companies be required to make it up to the town, perhaps by contributing in some way to the well being of the community as a whole. “They have not been a good neighbor,” he said. Boonstra -- along with Mayor De Phillips, Township Committeeman Kevin Rooney, Township Administrator Robert Shannon, and Police Chief Benjamin Fox were at town hall on a daily basis to coordinate and supervise relief efforts. “PSE&G and Rockland Electric were nowhere to be found,” Chief Fox said at the beginning of the disaster situation. Chief Fox pointed out that Wyckoff Township employees were banned from attempting to remove trees tangled with electric wires which could have electrocuted workers without protective gear and practical experience. He added that, at the height of the windstorm, he had been forced to pull his patrol cars off the road and to respond only to fires or personal injuries. Resident Erik Ruebenacker cautioned his neighbors to separate the utility companies from the local emergency services workers. “Don’t let negative comments on social media hurt you. If you’d been in a war zone, as I have, this is not so bad. Separate the public utilities from our volunteers and our police force. They are doing their best,” he said. “Respect the guys on the ground. They are here for us. They’ve come from all over the country. Don’t vent your frustration on them; go higher up,” said DPW Superintendent Scott Fisher. He said that O&R’s Allendale sub-station had been totally devastated and all 27 transmission lines into Wyckoff had been lost. Mayor De Phillips offered a detailed account of how official Wyckoff had tried to deal with the power outages and other storm damage. “At the exact hour one week ago the The Wyckoff Municipal Alliance and the Wyckoff Public Schools are sponsoring a program in conjunction with the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, which gives parents and caregivers an opportunity to find out the role they play and the power they have in preventing their children from abusing drugs and alcohol. This program is open to the public on Wednesday, Nov. 14 at 10:30 a.m. at Eisenhower Middle School, 344 Calvin Court in Wyckoff. The presentation will focus special attention to the epidemic of prescription drug abuse that is growing throughout the country and state and the steps parents can take to protect their family from this deadly Substance abuse program set addiction. Special Agent Douglas S. Collier of the Drug Enforcement Administration, New Jersey Division, will be on hand to speak to Wyckoff parents about this growing threat. The partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey has as its mission “simply to unsell the use of drugs to the people of New Jersey, especially young people.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently labeled prescription drug abuse an epidemic, reporting that the death toll from overdoses of prescription painkillers has more than tripled in the past decade, and more than 40 people die every day from overdoses involving narcotic pain relievers. storm was hitting Wyckoff with all its force and the township was sustaining 80 mph gusts for at least four hours,” Mayor De Phillips said. “The next morning the township Office of Emergency Management, the police department, fire department, the ambulance corps and the township committee stepped in to begin the recovery effort. We immediately set up two shelters at Powerhouse Church and at the Christian Health Care Center to care for displaced residents... We opened up the town hall to the public as both an information center and as shelter for the township residents. Hundreds and hundreds of residents have been through here in the last week, and we have helped them the best we can. We kept town hall open all weekend for residents who needed to charge their cell phones, who needed information, or who needed shelter.” The mayor said that the DPW did a Herculean job of clearing the roads and streets where the fallen trees were not entangled with wire, and that volunteers of the Wyckoff Board of Health and the ambulance corps had gone door to door performing welfare checks on elderly residents about whom the police department had been alerted by neighbors. Mayor DePhillips said officials would do a debriefing on practices that fall under local control and look at how things could be done differently or better to deal with a large scale disaster. He said, for instance, that the YMCA, the library and the schools (except Sicomac) had no generators, yet those are the natural places for shelter. “We can’t force anything, but we can encourage it,” he said.