It Was No Holiday for Cops and Rescuers

East Hampton Town police responded to what may well be a record number of incidents this past three-day weekend, about 190 of them reported during the 24 hours of July Fourth alone.

“It was a perfect storm,” Capt. Chris Anderson said Tuesday. He pointed to Montauk’s exploding reputation as a mecca for young partiers, along with a massive influx of out-of-towners for the hamlet’s Saturday-night fireworks show, as major factors in the spike of incidents on the holiday itself. Both this year and last, it took police over two hours to clear downtown Montauk of the cars of visitors trying to leave after the show ended.

When the Montauk Friends of Erin hold their annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the streets are also flooded with visitors, Captain Anderson said. However, crowd control for that event is augmented by over 100 additional police from other jurisdictions.

Certain programs do beef up the local police presence during the summers, such as the county’s Stop D.W.I. series, which was in place here Friday night, as reported elsewhere in this issue. New York State sends extra troopers to Montauk on some weekends, but by and large the town police are left to deal with the growing number of incidents on their own.

Officers in the field, while not allowed to comment publicly, say privately that they feel they are running from call to call, putting out fires but not really policing. The force has not grown substantively in many years, according to its annual reports. In addition, as Chief Michael D. Sarlo pointed out earlier this year, several key detectives and officers have retired, meaning some personnel have had to switch around. Among other things, such changes mean time away from the beat spent training.

Last year, when the Fourth fell on a Friday, there were 439 incidents involving a police response. This year the number jumped to 481, many callers complaining of noise, illegal fireworks, and drunken or violent behavior.

“We continue to get busier, and as the number of people coming to East Hampton grows, our challenges in managing response time, enforcement efforts, and maintaining a visible public safety presence increase,” Chief Sarlo said this week. “We are working hard to handle the influx as best we can. It is a difficult task, and we can’t be everywhere at once, but our officers are doing an outstanding job.”

Calls for emergency medical services also were high over the weekend, keeping ambulances on a loop back and forth to Southampton Hospital. From Friday to Monday, Montauk to Water Mill, crews answered nearly 100 calls.

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The Montauk department was by far the busiest with 32 E.M.S. calls, all of them taken to the hospital (a single call may last up to three hours, due to the long ride back in summer traffic, without lights or sirens). Montauk Chief Joe Lenahan called it “a long, frustrating weekend for my fire and E.M.S. personnel.”

In addition, Montauk firefighters stood by for the “Stars Over Montauk” fireworks display Saturday evening. Just after the show ended, word came of a possible fire at the commercial docks on East Lake Drive. It turned out to be about a bonfire, but firefighters had to fight heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic just to reach the scene.

“We encountered between 200 to 300 people sitting and standing in the middle median from the Circle to the block at Johnny’s Tackle Shop,” Chief Lenahan said. He had to divert the trucks up Flamingo Avenue to West Lake Drive just to get to East Lake Drive safely. “I’m glad that the fire did not amount to anything, because we lost crucial time going the long way instead of going through town,” he said. “I was nervous my equipment would get compromised and someone would get hit. The people would just not get out the road.”

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The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association responded to 24 calls; the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps answered 20 calls. The Amagansett Fire Department and the Bridgehampton Fire Department, both of which have ambulance companies, each responded to 10 calls. The Springs Fire Department was the least busy with three calls.

At the ocean and bay beaches, lifeguards were kept on their toes looking out for the 15,000 or so bathers they estimated were at protected beaches in Amagansett and Montauk from July 1 to Monday. The lifeguard chief, John Ryan Jr., said the beaches were “packed” Friday and Sunday, but less so Saturday in cloudy weather. Still, there were “constant rescues,” he said. Lifeguards flew a yellow flag, meaning use caution, for most of the weekend except for Sunday, when the flags were red, signifying dangerous surf conditions.

Mr. Ryan said ocean lifeguards were particularly busy in Amagansett, where there were a total of 31 rescues of swimmers caught in rip tides and brought safely to shore. At Atlantic Avenue, where the rip current was extremely long and strong, there were a total of 25 rescues, 18 in the protected area and 7 in unprotected areas nearby. “They were plucking kids and adults, swimmers in distress, left and right,” Mr. Ryan said.

Out in Montauk, there were 19 rescues, all at the protected ocean beaches. Also, six people were injured at the beaches during that same time period.