Fire Department Responds to 30 Storm-Related Calls

Among the worst storm-related calls the Long Beach Fire Department  received Sunday involved a man standing in chest-high water in his garage on Illinois Avenue.

“He had one of those garages where the driveway goes down,” LBFD Chief Richard Corbett said Monday morning.

As a reported 10 inches of rain fell on Long Beach island over the weekend, the fire department responded to about 30 storm-related calls from about 2:48 a.m. to 8:36 p.m. Sunday, Corbett said.

While about 12 of the calls were for flooding, 18 calls were fire-related, made by homeowners concerned about the smell of smoke or worried about outlets getting wet in their homes.

“We mostly had to shut off a lot of power,” Corbett said. "And there were no fires."

There were also six ambulance calls related to the storm, although the chief did not immediately have information on them Monday morning. 

Another call that stood out Sunday came from residents at the garden apartments at 470 E. Broadway, where the downstairs was submerged in water.

“The hallways and apartments had a couple of inches of water but the glass doors were holding back about four feet of water,” Corbett said.

He said that the fire department cannot pump flood water from people's homes. “There’s a liability and also we can’t tie our apparatuses up to pump people’s house out," the chief explained. "We’ll help them shut the power and do what we can to make sure their houses are safe. But that’s as about as far as we can go.”

The chief suggested that residents invest in submersible pumps that they can use to drain flood water from their homes. “I would highly recommend that people get those pumps,” he said.

He observed that, during his travels in response to emergency calls, West Park Avenue from about Edwards Boulevard into the West End was the roadway most flooded Sunday.