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On the 10th anniversary of the blackout that shocked the northeast, Tuckahoe Mayor Steve Ecklond unveiled the new emergency generator that will power the village DPW facilities, ensuring that Tuckahoe residents will have a quick response to the next great storm.
The funds for the new generator – nearly $100,000 in all, were secured by Assembly member Amy Paulin (D-88th District) through the Capital Projects grant program.
The new generator was installed in May behind the DPW building on Marbledale Road, after its antiquated predecessor, an old Kohler diesel-powered machine, died shortly before Hurricane Sandy hit last fall.
While unveiling the new generator to the public on Wednesday, Ecklond said that it was originally slated to be installed at the Community Center, but when the emergency arose, they were able to move it to the DPW building.
The generator will be an essential piece of equipment at the DPW building, where it will power the fuel cell that is used to gas all police, fire, emergency and DPW vehicles during emergency situations.
“The system will provide seamless power to the building and to the entire DPW facility,” Ecklond said. “We made the decision that it was important to have the emergency generator backup the facility to provide the energy to the fuel cell.”
When Hurricane Sandy hit, the village was forced to utilize temporary generators, which are noisier and less efficient. The new generator, which runs on natural gasoline, will automatically begin powering the station within seconds of an outage.
In the event of an emergency, Village Hall will continue to serve as the Emergency Operating Center, but officials there will now be able to communicate seamlessly with emergency crews during any emergency.
Paulin, the current chair of the Assembly Energy Committee, added, “we are aware that we need to keep our responders completely charged so that they can go out and charge everyone else.”
Bill Williams, the facility manager in Tuckahoe, said that the inside of the generator is heavily insulated with foam, and the permanent generator will produce very little noise to the neighbors directly around the DPW facility.
“It’s important for residents to know that we’re not going to disturb them at a time that the village is going to be at its most quiet,” he said. “They will not be disturbed when the generator is being used.”
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