---

Last Saturday night as severe thunderheads roiled over Long Island, lightning struck the Central Communications for Nassau County's dispatch headquarters for fire, ambulance and police services. According to Peter Meade, assistant fire marshal for Fire and Rescue Services, it is believed that the lightning hit a telephone line and knocked out phone services briefly. Serious damage was done to the switching device that controls the radios that transmit communications to police cars, ambulances and fire departments. To make matters worse, the computers crashed. The ability for Nassau County to dispatch calls for help from its 911 system was halted for two hours.

Dispatchers for fire and ambulance services based in local fire departments stepped up to take over the calls.

Mr. Meade praised the way the fire departments in Great Neck, namely the Vigilants, Port Washington, North Bellmore, Locust Valley and Rockville Center cooperated to assist Nassau County's emergency services to deal with their own emergency.

The situation was not lost on those who have criticized some of the recommendations from the Governor's Commission on Local Government Efficiencies and Competitiveness. One of its recommendations is: Require all E-911 calls and police, fire and emergency medical services dispatch to be done at the county level.

Village Officials Association President and former Nassau County Emergency Management Director Leonard Samansky told the Record, "Have we already forgotten the lessons of 9-11? When the City's emergency center was destroyed, Nassau County provided communications for one full day. We learned that back-up emergency services are life-saving...We're not coming to grips with matters of urgency."

State Senator Craig Johnson who served on the commission, but voted against the recommendation for centralizing emergency dispatches said, "The events of this weekend were a reminder of the value of continued local control and decentralization of our emergency communications services. Situations such as this are why I voted against a measure, while serving as a member of the Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, that would have given counties the sole oversight of emergency communication systems. Once again our local volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers went above and beyond to help their neighbors."

A call for comment on the matter was placed to the office of Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, who also served on the governor's commission, but was not returned by press time.