Public Employee Press

Surviving Sandy
Home flooded, he saved others

Not even a flood could keep Emergency Medical Technician Todd Bilgore from coming to the aid of others.

Superstorm Sandy slammed especially hard into the Rockaways, Staten Island and the low-lying Brooklyn neighborhoods of Red Hook, Coney Island and Gerritsen Beach, whose modestly priced homes attract public servants from the Environmental Protection, Police and Fire departments.

In the close-knit waterfront community where Bilgore had lived for 10 years, almost every house was destroyed or damaged Oct. 29, and he was driven from his home.

He was relaxing with his family in their two-story house on Seba Avenue when a neighbor came banging frantically on his front door. The neighbor was standing waist deep in the rising floodwaters. Bilgore quickly evacuated with his wife and two sons, taking only a few personal mementos, his laptop computer and a handful of clothes.

"We went through Hurricane Irene last year, but this was the worst I've ever seen," said the Local 2507 member. "The whole neighborhood was under water."

After making sure his family was safe, Bilgore went into action as a rescue worker. With water several feet high, many neighbors were stuck in their flooded homes. "We must have helped around 50 people that day," he recalled.

Eleven years earlier, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, Bilgore plunged into the rescue effort at Ground Zero. He worked and volunteered until March 2002, breathing the toxic air of the disaster site. He was later diagnosed with a blood cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. After undergoing chemotherapy treatments, he went back to work at Emergency Medical Service Station 58 in Brooklyn.

Bilgore is staying with his wife's family in nearby Marine Park and has begun ripping the rugs and sheetrock from his living room and kitchen as he waits to hear from his insurance company.

In a baseball field on Gerritsen Boulevard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has aided more than 1,000 Sandy victims at a mobile disaster recovery center.

And nearby, at the local community center, volunteers help neighborhood people with problems from trash removal to filling out insurance forms. Despite his own plight, Todd Bilgore is one of those volunteers.

—Alfredo Alvarado