Blooming Grove — When Germaine Zimet's father suffered a heart attack at her home on 5 Cardinal
Drive seven years ago, paramedics responded within minutes.

To another home More than 5 miles away

To the other 5 Cardinal Drive in town.

"We were screaming on the phone, 'Where are you, where are you?'" Zimet said.
She followed the dispatcher's instructions and gave her father CPR until paramedics arrived 15 minutes
later. He was taken to the hospital and died minutes later.

About 40,000 addresses were changed in the mid-1990s as part of Orange County's emergency
telephone system to avoid duplicate street names and allow emergency services to respond without
confusion.

But it seems the two Cardinal Drives in Blooming Grove were overlooked then. The issue was revived in
2000 after Zimet's father's death, when the town E-911 address coordinator, Sharon Kopiecki,
requested a street name change.

Nothing happened.

Supervisor Charles Bohan said he only recently learned of the matter after South Blooming Grove
Mayor Rob Jeroloman began the process to change the name of Cardinal Drive in his village.

The village, which was incorporated just last year, will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. Monday at the
South Blooming Grove firehouse about the name change. It will consider names like North Cardinal
Drive or Cardinal Lane.

Until that happens though, the Blooming Grove Police Department will continue its policy of sending two
police units — one to each street — whenever a call comes from a Cardinal Drive.

It used to be that emergency dispatchers could tell from which house a call originated by the first three
digits of the phone number: those in Blooming Grove are 496, those in South Blooming Grove are either
782 or 783, said Officer Ron Moraski. But with more residents getting cable phone lines, the first three
numbers no longer follow a pattern, further exacerbating the problem.

When the Nor'easter in April left several roads, including the town's Cardinal Drive, underwater,
emergency responders went to both streets for reports of flooded homes.

Maggie Crinnion, Zimet's neighbor at 3 Cardinal Drive, taught her children, ages 5, 12 and 18, how to
call 911 if the need ever arose.

"I tell them it's not Cardinal Drive Extension (in Washingtonville) and it's not Cardinal Drive (near)
Monroe, that it's Cardinal Drive on the flood plain," she said.

Calling police has never been an issue, she said, although they have received pizzas and mail that were
intended for the other 3 Cardinal Drive.

Standing outside her home yesterday, Crinnion pointed across the street at neighbors and said it was her
responsibility to warn the newcomers about the street duplicity.

"It's the first thing we tell people."