Rescue workers save rain-stranded drivers

Floods, and perhaps fate, Sunday renewed the connection between a Merrick couple and the family they sought to help in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks a decade ago.

Aaron Aronoff, 54, was stuck in his car for an hour, with water above the hubcaps, on the Meadowbrook Parkway around 10:30 a.m. Four Merrick firefighters waded through 2 feet of water to push the BMW sedan to safety and a tow truck.

One of the firefighters was Tommy Gies, the son of 9/11 first responder Ronnie Gies, who died in the terrorist attack.

When Aronoff asked how he could repay them, Gies said he could make a donation to the fire department. At home, Aronoff asked his wife, Gail, to take food to the station during the week since he would be out of town. "Who should I ask for?" she said she asked. He told her Gies, the only firefighter name he knew.

It was a surprisingly familiar name.

Just after the attacks, Gail Aronoff felt the need to reach out. She had read about a local firefighter who died in the south tower of the World Trade Center, leaving a wife and three young sons. Gail Aronoff also had three sons. She sent food and a "care package" to the family, she said. It was the Gies family. "We didn't know them, but I wanted to send something to them," Gail Aronoff said. "It's just the craziest turn of events that that's who saved my husband."

Aronoff was one of dozens of drivers caught in flooded roadways around western Long Island Sunday.

Joe Sperber, chief of the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department, said responders used an inflatable rescue boat in a few cases to save stranded drivers in stalled cars where water rose as high as 5 or 6 feet.

Jules Hoffman, 86, of Lawrence, said he was stuck in his Toyota Avalon on Meadow Lane for almost two hours with water up to his knees. Then a familiar face came to his window: his grandson Justin Hoffman, a firefighter, who helped his grandfather out of his car and into the inflatable boat.

Rescue work started early yesterday morning for the Elmont Fire Department. Chief Michael Capoziello said firefighters faced completely submerged cars at the flood-prone Central Avenue and Southern State Parkway interchange at 4:30 a.m., shortly after the heavy storm started.