This is probably a bit overdue, but we want to offer a big "thank you" to Great Neck Village Officials Association President Bob Bernstein, the mayor of Lake Success. Thank you, Bob, for your strong initiative and hard work in providing this peninsula with some real emergency disaster preparedness plans. While efforts have come and gone over a period of many years, now, under Bob's leadership, and with the help of his fellow local officials, we are not only on the right track, but now we finally have some real procedures in place and some concrete facts down on paper.

Yes, there may be quite a ways yet to go for final plans and a command center set-up, but, at last, our local public officials have set a plan and are working diligently toward completion. A command center will be officially chosen and set up very soon. Peninsula-wide, a list of residents have received official CERT (civilian emergency response team) training. There are books, for each village (and each participating municipality) with information such as crucial telephone numbers and asset lists. And the villages have joined with others, such as the firefighters and police, to perform successful regular radio drills.

For more years than we care to remember, we have used this space to urge, to beg, local officials to work together to develop plans to protect us in case of a major disaster. Thank you Bob Bernstein for listening. Thank you for your caring, your hard work and your strong leadership. You are really making a difference in every life in this community and we hope that everyone you meet comes up and says "thank you."

On behalf of the Great Neck community, thank you Bob Bernstein!

- Wendy K. Kreitzman