By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Sea Isle City is moving ahead with a construction project that will allow firefighters to work the overnight shift and respond to emergencies faster.
To accommodate the overnight crews, the city is planning to build four new bunk rooms inside the firehouse. The separate rooms will allow male and female firefighters to have their own sleeping quarters.
City Council is expected at its meeting Tuesday to award a $169,000 construction contract to R. Maxwell Construction Co. Inc. of Pleasantville, N.J., the only company that submitted a bid for the project.
More details are expected to be released at the meeting about the project, including how long it will take to build.
In the meantime, the overnight crews will continue to use the beds in their meeting room at the fire station. Female firefighters have a separate room, said Capt. Anthony Garreffi, who oversees public safety as the officer in charge of the Sea Isle Police Department.
As a way to improve response times and public safety, the Sea Isle City Volunteer Fire Department will have firefighters on duty overnight throughout the summer for the second year in a row.
The night crews create a hybrid model consisting of volunteers in the day and paid firefighters for the overnight shift. Firefighters are each paid $160 for each night they work, city officials say.
“As you probably know, our Duty Crew will be standing by at the firehouse at specific times of the week and will be ready to respond the moment the fire whistle sounds. I want to thank each of our Duty Crew members and all of the firefighters at Sea Isle City’s Volunteer Fire Department, who make this town a safer place for us all,” Mayor Leonard Desiderio said in a statement to the public.
A series of fires between 2017 and 2019 led to a restructuring in the volunteer fire department.
Sea Isle started the program for overnight fire crews last year and it was hailed as a success. The overnight shift resumed this year during Memorial Day weekend.
Garreffi said in an interview in June that he spoke with Fire Chief Bryan Moran and the plan is to expand the overnight crews to as many days as possible, including having round-the-clock coverage on Saturdays and Sundays.
“It will be better service, quicker service. It will offer peace of mind. They will have fire personnel there at night and ready to respond,” Garreffi said in the interview.
The overnight crews were part of the fire department’s restructuring following four separate fires in 2017, 2018 and 2019 that destroyed a total of nine single-family homes or duplexes. One of the fires killed an elderly woman on 54th Street in November 2018.
Normally, Sea Isle’s volunteer firefighters must drive to the fire station from their homes or jobs after the alarm goes off, a process that adds time for responding to emergencies.
By having crews stationed at the firehouse, they will be able to rush to emergencies much faster, improving their chances of saving a home or business that is on fire.
“It’s an immediate response time of our fire apparatus,” Garreffi said.
The overnight fire crews coincide with the busy summer tourism season, when Sea Isle’s population swells from about 2,000 year-round residents to between 50,000 and 70,000 vacationers on some weekends.
