Thursday, February 02, 2006

A Tram to Remember

This is SO classic! Check out where the rider at the end is from:

Roosevelt Island Tram Stalls, Trapping 100 Riders for 2 Hours
By MARC SANTORA for the NYTimes
Published: September 3, 2005
A routine four-minute journey across the East River on the Roosevelt Island Tramway turned into a frightening two-hour ordeal for about 100 passengers who were trapped, suspended hundreds of feet in the air, when the power failed yesterday.
Power was restored after about two hours. "I thought the terrorists did something," said John McCulloch, 38, who uses a wheelchair. "For a moment there I thought it was really going to collapse." When the tram stopped about 4 p.m., many passengers said, the cable cars began swaying rather strongly, startling them.
The delay in getting the tram running again was made more difficult because the only engineer familiar with the system was in Westchester County. He was brought in on a police helicopter. Once the engineer arrived, he was able to start the power generator quickly and get the tram moving. Had he not been able to restore the power, fire officials said, they had several alternative plans to rescue the passengers. One car, which was stuck above 60th Street between First and Second Avenues, would have been relatively easy to evacuate using ladders, fire officials said. Evacuating the other car, hanging high over the East River, would have been trickier. Battalion Chief Charles Vella said an emergency car could have been attached to the suspension wire, manually brought to the stalled car, and used to ferry passengers to land. While the process would have been slow, it would have been safe.
(Ready for the Big Finsh? Continue Reading)
A woman from Portland, Ore., Catherine Rolph, 35, who is visiting New York to take part in a salsa competition, was stranded with her dance partner, Eric Gonzalez, 33, on the car above the water yesterday. When she finally stepped off onto Roosevelt Island, Ms. Rolph had only one question about the return journey: "Can you tell us how to get to the subway?"

2 Comments:

At 7:49 AM, Blogger Bill McDonald said...

Dear Garage Wine,
Nice, and it sounds like you've got rehearsal space and refreshments.
I hope to talk to my brother and get some North Korea stuff for you, but he's always doing some kind of video project and is usually editing away in Minnesota far from the madding crowd.

 
At 10:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know eric and catherine and that sounds just like them!

ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!

 

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