Inspired by rabbi grandad, firefighter rushes south for Hurricane Katrina mop-up

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

Infused with a spirit he inherited from his grandfather, the late Rabbi Eli Pilchik, a 29-year-old firefighter said he is eager to return to the Gulf Coast and continue decontaminating the rescue workers and police officers exposed to the toxic perils of New Orleans.

On Sept. 7, Michael Zucker took time off from his daytime job as a systems analyst in an insurance company to be part of a 200-member decontamination unit organized by the New Jersey State Police to assist in relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina.

Two days after returning from his two-week tour of duty in Louisiana, Zucker told NJ Jewish News, “I would rather save someone else’s life than save my life. I’m sure my grandfather had a pretty big influence on my life. He taught me what’s wrong and what’s right.”

Pilchik, who died in 2003, was a key figure in the Reform movement during the 34 years he served as rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun — first in Newark, then in Short Hills. According to his grandson, the son of Richard Zucker and Pilchik’s daughter Judy, one major lesson the rabbi transmitted was that “helping people is the right thing to do. I probably had that instinct when I went into the fire department, and I continue to have that.”

For the past 12 years, Zucker has been a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician at the Morris Township Fire Department, where he presently holds the rank of lieutenant.

Dispatched to Louisiana, Zucker’s unit set up shop in the town of Kenner at a place they called Camp New Jersey. The group devoted “a small amount of time” to treating people exposed to an oil spill, but for the most part waited for instructions as to where they should go next.

They were relocated to the grounds of the Family Worship Center, the Baton Rouge headquarters of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, then moved to a second location operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Their assignment was to decontaminate police officers and other relief workers who had waded in water contaminated by chemicals, fuel, human waste, and even dead bodies. “The water was toxic, and we had to get that stuff off of them as soon as possible, as well as off their automobiles and whatever they were driving,” Zucker said.

The danger to those exposed was “that within five or 10 minutes, if you touch the water you are going to be getting rashes and blisters. It can be actually fatal if you touch it.”

Although people away from the scene might have expected that rescue workers would be covered head-to-toe in protective gear, “actually, they were not,” said Zucker. “The only people ready for it were the decontamination Hazmat teams.”

Among those who required special treatment were trusties — trusted prisoners — who were used by the Louisiana State Police to “do the dirty work as far as cleaning out buildings that had human remains in them.”

Zucker said he found direction of rescue efforts “extremely disorganized. From our end it seems as though we were waiting a lot. We were running around, then just waiting and finding out they did need us somewhere, but not at the place where we were located. At other times we would get to a location and our contact person wouldn’t know why we were there.”

He said it took “about a week and a half for them to get things in order in places where they needed us most.”

But in spite of the confusion, the people Zucker and his comrades served “were extremely appreciative of our presence there, and they were actually wondering why we weren’t there earlier. We were the first decon unit on the scene, and we had to come all the way from Jersey.”

As the Gulf Coast region prepared for the onslaught of Hurricane Rita, Zucker said, he felt compelled to return to the area.

Like many other rescue workers, he said, he is prepared to respond to scenarios that were all but unthinkable before 9/11.

“The regular residents and citizens of this country would not have a clue of what to do, but we’re trained in how to take care of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive attacks.”

By comparison, he said, “what’s going on after the hurricane is small scale compared to something biological or nuclear happening here. There would be chaos. Nobody knows what to do.”

After two weeks of nine-hour shifts seven days a week, Zucker’s unit was relieved by another group of volunteers from Morris Township, and he returned to his life and work with a new perspective.

“I came back to work in the insurance industry, and there are bigger things in life than insurance. It is a matter of life and death in a lot of these situations. I put the fire department before my job. The fire department to me is my second family.”

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com.

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