Police rescue tram passengers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kids were among passengers stranded last night after a power failure halted the Roosevelt Island tram they were riding in, dangling them high above the city.
Passengers are transported to steady ground in a rescue basket after being trapped for hours on a Roosevelt Island tram.
Earlier story: Drama's sky-high on tram
Stranded in cable cars hundreds of feet above the East River, the passengers kept calm by telling jokes and playing cell phone ringtones. All the while, police scrambled to get them down, at one point hoisting baby formula, diapers and snacks into a car containing two babies.
It was one of several improvisations that police and engineers had to carry out Tuesday night during a painstaking mission that took nearly 12 hours to complete. Complicating matters was the failure of a backup power system that, if working, would have made for a relatively quick rescue, authorities said Wednesday.
The 69 people in two cars, including two infants in strollers, emerged unscathed — with the babies sleeping through their rescues. "New Yorkers are resilient," said Detective Michael Fiol, one of the rescuers with the police Emergency Service Unit. "We all know that."
But the incident, which followed a similar mishap last year, raised questions about the safety and reliability of a quaint mode of transportation still used by thousands of New Yorkers each day.
The Roosevelt Island tram, operated by a corporation created in 1984 and overseen by the state, remained closed on Wednesday while undergoing an inspection by the Department of Labor.
Gov. George Pataki said the tram had passed recent inspections and "was in good working order" when a possible power surge caused it to stall at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
After 100 passengers were trapped on the tram for two hours during another power failure in September 2005, state officials ordered more training for operators and upgrades in the electrical backup system. Parts for the upgrade were ordered, but apparently hadn't been delivered and installed, said labor department spokeswoman Ruth Pillettere.
At a news conference, Herb Berman, president of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp., defended the tram's safety by noting the rescue was the first in its 30-year history.
"We have always had safety procedures in place in case the need for a rescue came about," he said. "We are very pleased that the procedure worked and that all of the passengers were helped from the tram without injury."
In last year's incident, efforts to restart the tram were delayed because the only engineer trained to fix it was in Westchester County. He eventually was flown in by police helicopter.
On Tuesday, the same engineer was on hand when both cars of the tramway — which shuttles commuters and tourists on a 5-minute ride between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island while offering breathtaking views of the city from up to 250 feet high — stopped moving.
One of the tramcars had 46 passengers plus an operator, the other 21 and an operator, police said; each can hold about 125 people. At least a dozen of those stranded in the tramcars were school-age children or babies; a dog also was rescued.
The tram engineer spent three hours, at times on the phone with a manufacturer in Switzerland, unsuccessfully trying to restart the system.
Police were then forced to mount a daring midair rescue using a diesel-powered rescue bucket capable of holding 12 people, police said. It wasn't until 11 p.m. that the first batch of passengers from the car nearest to Roosevelt Island was slowly pulled into the bucket and taken to safety.
On the Manhattan side, an industrial crane was summoned to save passengers in the second car, including 13- and 14-month old infants.
The last passengers were pulled out at 4:07 a.m., police said.
Safely on the ground, 12-year old Dax Maier recalled telling himself not to look down while being rescued. The mood in his car was almost festive, he said, with people singing, telling jokes and playing cell phone ringtones to pass time.
"Sometimes you can find great people in New York," Dax said in appearances on morning television shows.
Of course, there were problems.
"Well, there was this one kid who peed in a cup," he said.
Laurence Marie, 56, who was among the last people rescued from the tram, said that adults held back their fears through the ordeal.
"I am very scared of heights," she said. "But because there were children, we had to behave."
Many Roosevelt Island residents said that the tram is normally the most convenient and reliable transportation to Manhattan.
"The tram needs to be fixed because it's safe and the subway is so packed and slow," said Wesslyn Johnson, 36. "But I'm sure glad I wasn't onboard when it stopped. They would have pronounced me dead of fear at the end of it."
The tram system opened in 1976 to carry Roosevelt Island residents to and from midtown Manhattan. It has been featured in movies such as "Spider-Man," "City Slickers" and the Sylvester Stallone thriller "Nighthawks" and on the NBC reality show "Fear Factor."
The system travels at an average speed of 16 mph and has served more than 20 million people, the RIOC Web site says.
Roosevelt Island, which sits in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, is about 2 miles long and about 800 feet wide. Roughly 10,000 people live on the island, which also is accessible by bridge and subway.
Earlier story: Drama's sky-high on tram
Cops work overnight to save 69 people stuck on two cars
BY DEREK ROSE and CARRIE MELAGO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Dangling high above the East River, 69 people waited for hours aboard two busted Roosevelt Island tram cars last night as elite teams of cops launched an unprecedented rescue effort.
A four-minute trip turned into a high-wire drama when a power failure brought the two tram cars going in opposite directions to an abrupt halt at 5:24 p.m.
Five hours and 50 minutes later, a cheer went up from onlookers when the first rescue basket laden with eight children and five adults inched toward safety on the Roosevelt Island side.
"It's all right, it's all right. It's just going to be a little bumpy," a police officer reassured 11-year-old Zachary Rothfeld, one of the first to be saved.
"They were so great. They really made us feel so calm," said Zachary's mother, Elena Rothfeld. "They made us feel safe."
More than an hour later, nine more people were plucked from the eastbound gondola as rescuers worked into the night to free the remaining travelers, about a dozen at a time.
There were 47 aboard the eastbound car, including its operator. Another 21 passengers and one operator were stranded in the car stuck over Manhattan.
"We were under the basket and policemen were literally physically pulling us up," said Alex Gamburg, 74, an illustrator for New York Press who was among the second group. "I was extremely impressed with how the police were extremely careful with all of us."
Former Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio, who lost a Senate race to Hillary Clinton in 2000, waited nervously on Roosevelt Island as rescuers brought his teenage daughter Kelsey to safety. The girl, who had been on her way to a tennis lesson on Roosevelt Island, embraced her dad on solid ground.
"She's a trouper," Lazio said. "We're very proud of how she held up."
Passengers described a comforting camaraderie on the stalled gondolas. They sang lullabies to the fussy babies, told jokes and pondered how long they might be stuck.
"It was brilliant the way people connected," said Maari DeSouza, who runs a school for leaning disabled children and prayed the rosary to pass the time. "The children were amazing. Only one cried towards the end."
But much of the time was spent trying to contact loved ones via cell phones and gather information about the rescue.
"The little one is very afraid. She wants to know when she's coming down," said Sciencia Fleury, 48, whose 8-year-old daughter, Annie, and 18-year-old son, John, were trapped aboard. "She said, 'I'm hungry. I want to come home.' "
The car stranded over 60th St. and First Ave. sent a note down in a basket to rescuers pleading for baby formula, diapers and blankets. Provisions like potato chips, Oreo cookies, diapers and water were later hoisted up in a basket.
The passengers were initially thrilled at the sight of rescuers, but then petrified at the idea of carefully boarding the tiny rescue basket.
"Being on the tram was fine, but when I heard we had to get on the little cage thing, I was nervous," Elena Rothfeld said. Emergency Service Unit cops hooked the basket securely onto the gondolas and guided passengers out an emergency door. Then they began the slow and steady ride to safety.
Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and a swarm of media were waiting as the first batch of rescuees reached solid ground.
"I've talked to all of them. I've exchanged high-fives with some of the kids," Bloomberg said during a press conference.
The source of the power outage was not known last night, but Bloomberg said tram operators were unable to restart the main and backup generators.
"This is a 30-year-old tram, which obviously has some problems. We're going to make sure it doesn't go again until we make a careful review," he said.
The cabins were stopped at opposite ends of the tramway's 3,100-foot route, which runs parallel to the Queensboro Bridge from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island.
Lee Anne Siegel, who was stuck with her 14-month-old daughter, Riley, was making the best of the endless wait, sending camera-phone photos to her husband at the Manhattan station.
"The baby's in a good mood," said Jordan Siegel, 30. "They've got water. The kid had an entire bag of Goldfish [crackers] for dinner."
The mother and daughter had taken the tram to visit a park on Roosevelt Island as a change of pace.
"I think they'll go to Central Park next time," the father said.
Cops first tried to use a hand crank to manually pull the trams back over land toward their docking stations as engineers struggled to fix the electrical problem.
A similarly alarming power outage stalled service in September but trapped riders for only about 90 minutes before the power kicked back on.
"They said this would not happen again, and here we are. It happened again," said City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, a Democrat who represents Roosevelt Island. "It has to be a safe and reliable form of transportation."
sorry did not know this was old news... my bad
This post has been edited by Yaoma: 19 April 2006 - 05:59 PM
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Whistler, on Apr 19 2006, 12:38 AM, said:
ny_tram.jpg (180.32K)
