Next time your basement floods, who you gonna call?

I live in that part of East Brunswick that sometimes feels a bit like a neglected orphan.

It’s a pleasant part of the community over by Farrington Lake and Bicenten-nial Park, but we don’t always feel like the town pays much attention to us. The Milltown Post Office delivers our mail, for example. But if someone writes us and uses our real East Brunswick address instead of a Milltown address, the mail is not delivered. We have water but no sanitary services. Call a cop, and they sometimes have to drive a long way to get here.

We’re also often served by volunteer firefighters from Milltown and the Milltown rescue squad.

And because our lives may someday depend on them, that’s why, once or twice a year, so many of my neighbors make it a point to give those organizations some money when they come fund-raising door to door. And we always stick some money in the Milltown firemen’s boots whenever they have a boot drive.

I will admit, on occasion, feeling a bit put upon when — during a boot drive — they put men and women with empty boots at every stop light in town, going each direction. That means that on a single trip running errands on Saturday morning to Home Depot, the dry cleaners, the post office and the bank, you might be asked to put money in a boot eight or nine times, depending on how many red lights you hit.

But I’ve never really begrudged the money because I know those men and women are volunteers for the most part, and they’re donating their time, sometimes lots of it, out of a sense of civic duty and altruism. I take it as an absolute article of faith that if I, or my family, ever needed them, they’d be there, and they wouldn’t leave until the job was done.

I’ve seen it happen many times before as a reporter and a neighbor, at fires and emergencies, and I’ve seen the gratitude and kind words families had for those volunteers, even in the face of their own adversity.

That’s why I was appalled to read last week in a Greater Media Newspaper — the East Brunswick Sentinel — that during a recent flood in Helmetta, people were actually cursing and insulting volunteer firemen because they didn’t think the responders were pumping their basements quickly enough.

The fact that pumping basements and roadways isn’t part of a volunteer firefighter’s job description in the first place apparently didn’t enter these nincompoops’ minds, and they not only bit the hands reaching out to help them, they tried to bite them off.

At last week’s Borough Council meeting, Helmetta Fire Chief Greg Bennett said that in spite of the fact that many of their own basements were flooding, volunteers in that community and other surrounding communities spent more than 350 man hours helping residents during the recent floods. Many worked more than 20 hours straight, some nearly 30. At this point, there’s no firm estimate on how much those volunteers lost in wages from their own jobs while they were doing their good deeds.

During the flood, Bennett said, one volunteer firefighter almost drowned when he fell into an open storm drain. Like their colleagues in Helmetta, most of the responders who came from other communities were volunteers, and therefore uncompensated. Some of them did not see their families for nearly two days.

And for their efforts, Bennett said, volunteers were cursed at, insulted and harassed by homeowners who wanted their places pumped out before anyone else’s. He was taken aback by that “me first” mentality and by the personal attacks. At one point, he said in a statement not used in our news story, one East Brunswick firefighter was told, “You guys ain’t doing s***. You’re just here to play with your toys.”

In total, he remembers being thanked by only two or three people who had received assistance.

When he first heard reports of the offensive comments, Bennett said he was ashamed to admit he lived in Helmetta, but he also had a warning. If the place floods again, he said, “the fire department will think long and hard if we want to subject ourselves to this type of abuse. It is extremely possible that in the future, we will not come out to remove water from roadways or private homes.”

I’ve never met Greg Bennett, but I suspect that he, and his fellow volunteers, will not live up to that threat.

People like him, generous men and women who volunteer so much of their time and effort with no pay and little thanks, are not the kind to stand idly by in an emergency, even if their efforts are never truly appreciated. The next time there’s a flood in Helmetta, it’s my prediction they’ll be there, even if they risk their own lives in doing so.

That’s what sets people like Bennett and the other men and women who volunteer their time in fire departments and rescue squads apart from those ungrateful souls who made such offensive comments and insulting remarks.

The next time a boot drive comes along, those rude people ought to fill the empty boots with cash to make up for their bad behavior — but I doubt they will. They’re the ones who roll their windows up and drive on, pretending they don’t see the volunteers with empty boots and collection cans standing there in the first place. They’re also the ones who scream bloody murder when someone suggests it might be time to have paid fire and ambulance squads, because actually paying for emergency services would significantly increase their municipal tax bills.

Until a swimming pool develops in their basement, or their kitchen catches fire, of course, and then all bets are off.

Those people might not be ashamed of their behavior, but they ought to be. And because I have the suspicion they won’t apologize for themselves, we have to do it for them.

I think I speak for a lot of people in this area when I say we appreciate the work done for us by our volunteer firefighters and rescue squad members. Thanks, guys. And we’re sorry those people in Helmetta behaved so badly.

They’re just a bunch of jerks.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers.