Manhattan- Tram Rescue 4-18-06

[grumpyff 1,159]

Saw this on WABC 7 news 2 trams stuck since 5:15pm, stranding almost 80 people. Definatley NYPD ESU present, unsure of FDNY response. At this time (2316 hrs) just starting to remove passengers 12 at a time.

ABC 7 now saying at this pace, it will take almost 3 hours to evacuate all passengers. Both generator, and backup have failed leaving both trams stuck with no power. One tram is over 1st avenue, approximately 125 feet above ground. The second tram is 250 feet over the East River.

CLICK HERE for 7online

Edited April 19, 2006 by Truck4

[JBE 328]

We went over there about 1725. Looks like they were turned around by Roosevelt Island. We were called back about 2135 hrs. Haven't been paying much attention to it other than what everyone else is seeing on the Tube.

Just an FYI, the way the directive was written, it calls for a response to both sides. Manhattan Box 1924 for the Roosevelt Island side, and Box 937 for the Midtown side. Tactical Support, Deputy Chief and a 95 foot tower ladder to each side of the tram, along with the usual special units. I honestly can't remember if it's treated like a high angle job. It's been a while since I have had to deal with it.

[JBE 328]

Latest report as per DAC Pfieffer. 95 foot TL special called and occupants continue to be removed. Prolonged operation.

[EJS1810 7]

JBE, Is there another way on/off the island? Does FDNY have any resources on the island fulltime? This would have to be as slow a post as City Island.

[JBE 328]

There are only three ways on and off the Island. There is a bridge that goes to Queens, the tram, and the subway. There is a firehouse on the Island. However, there are no full time Engines or Trucks there. It's all SOC units with a reserve engine, truck and an ambulance. It used to be Engine 49, but I believe it was disbanded in the 50's.

[huzzie59 75]

Anyone have any first hand knowledge or were involved in the Tram incident?

[Guest]

Glad to see everyone safely rescued and, that after the initial confusion a Unified Command was apparently established among NYPD, FDNY and OEM.

April 20, 2006

Tram Rescuers Rigged 2 Untested Ways Out

By ANDREW JACOBS

THE NEW YORK TIMES

For 30 years, the red cage sat on a concrete slab below the Roosevelt Island Tramway station.

On Tuesday afternoon, with 68 people trapped in a pair of trams hundreds of feet above their heads, rescue workers from the Police Department were faced with a nerve-wracking challenge: how to turn the cage, which resembles a jungle gym, into a moving platform that would travel along the cables, pull up alongside the swaying trams and bring the passengers safely back to earth.

"There's never been a rescue like this before," Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman, said yesterday. "They had to do a fair amount of improvising."

And then some.

Rescuers began sending the cage up to the first tram, suspended over the East River on its way to Roosevelt Island, around 11 p.m. The second, carrying 20 people, was bound for Manhattan and suspended over First Avenue.

Rescuers had planned on using the single cage to empty both trams, but it soon became clear that the rescue would take much longer than they had thought, and around midnight, officials started considering Plan B.

About 12:20 a.m. yesterday, emergency management officials tracked down the owner of a Queens crane company at a restaurant and asked him to send an 18-story monster. Two hours later, a hydraulic all-terrain crane rumbled down First Avenue, a contract was hastily signed on the street and engineers set to work figuring how to turn the crane into a modern-day deus ex machina.

So it went with one of the more unusual rescue operations in the history of New York City.

It ended with a burst of applause at 4:07 a.m. yesterday as the last sleep-deprived passengers stepped on to First Avenue. No one was injured in the ordeal, which began about 4:30 on Tuesday after a power surge knocked out the system and a backup generator failed to start.

The bright red trams remained frozen in place yesterday as investigators sought to understand what had brought the system to a halt.

And while there was nothing but praise for the police officers and firefighters who pulled off the rescue, even police officials expressed frustration yesterday as to why it took so long, forcing passengers to spend more than 11 hours trapped.

Why, for example, did Fire Department rescuers, some of them specifically trained for such rescue missions, not take the lead?

And, more broadly, why has the tram system been so bedeviled by problems of late, and so reliant on cumbersome rescue equipment that is time-consuming to assemble?

A few hours after the last passengers were taken off the gondola and driven to their homes by a fleet of squad cars, Herbert E. Berman, the president of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, which oversees the tramway, commended rescue officials, pointing out that no one was injured and insisting that the evacuation went according to plan.

"It was a tedious process but it was a safe process," he said. "We made sure everybody successfully got off the tram."

The rescue began at 5:22 p.m. Tuesday, when officers from the Police Department's Emergency Service Unit first arrived on the Roosevelt Island side of the tramway and found themselves facing a confounding set of challenges: a mysterious power surge had blown out the system's trio of 800-amp fuses and a backup generator was refusing to come to life.

For three frustrating hours, police officials said, dozens of highly trained rescue workers stood by as Armando Cordova, the tram's director of operations, spoke to the system's manufacturers in Switzerland.

At 8:30 p.m., 15 minutes after the tramway briefly sprang to life and the cars lurched 75 feet and then conked out again, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told police strategists to come up with a rescue plan.

For the next two and a quarter hours, workers, using an electric-powered winch, struggled to hoist the metal cage onto the cables.

At 10:45 p.m., with a dozen police officers acting as human ballast, the cage — clamped to the main cable and pulled along by a diesel-powered engine — went on a 15-minute test run.

By the time the cage reached the first tram car — five and a half hours after it had halted — the passengers were exhausted, edgy but bursting with appreciation, rescuers said. Bringing first the elderly, children and their mothers, it took rescuers four hours and five separate trips to bring all 48 passengers to the Roosevelt Island Terminal.

It took two more trips, and an additional hour and a quarter, to rescue the final 20 in the car bound for Manhattan. "When we opened the door, they clapped," said Detective Peter Keszthelyi, who was one of the first to reach that car.

The delays prompted several questions about whether the Fire Department, which six months ago took part in mock rescue exercises on the tram, would have been better equipped to see the mission through.

In New York, the scenes of rescues large and small have often become the staging ground for fights between firefighters and police officers, particularly from the elite units, in a phenomenon known as the battle of the badges.

On Tuesday evening, the Fire and Police Departments both responded to the scene within minutes of each other shortly before 5:30 p.m.

But half an hour later, the firefighters left their posts on both sides of the river, believing that the tramway was close to being fixed, as had happened in September during a similar failure, fire officials said.

At 9:30 p.m., firefighters — having been called back by emergency management officials who were unable to restart the tram — returned to the scene, where they found police units preparing to use the rescue cage.

Over the past two years, the Fire Department has conducted several mock drills using the rescue cage, most recently in November.

The police have conducted counterterrorism drills involving the tram system and have been briefed about the use of the rescue cage, but they have not had hands-on training.

Several fire personnel involved in the rescue efforts said they believed that the efforts would have gone faster if the specially trained firefighters had been present throughout the crisis.

But police and fire officials said their brief absence made no difference because several hours were spent trying to restart the system. Preparing the rescue cage for use, the tram engineer said, takes at least two hours under the best of circumstances.

In any case, after the firefighters returned, the rescue operation became a model of cooperation, city officials said. Commanders from both agencies stood face to face, making tactical decisions and forging a plan. Firefighters rode with police officers in the rescue cage on the Roosevelt Island side of the operation, and allowed the officers a spot next to them in a bucket raised from the back of a fire truck on the Manhattan side.

That effort also required private help. It was shortly after midnight when Kenneth Bernardo, president of the Bay Crane company, got a call from city officials asking for his help. Mr. Bernardo, who was having dinner at a restaurant a few blocks from the tram's Manhattan-side station, dispatched one of his largest pieces of construction equipment from a depot in Long Island City, Queens.

At 2:15 a.m. yesterday, the 150-ton crane crossed the Queensboro Bridge and rolled up to the scene. By 3:30 a.m., engineers attached a platform known as a man basket, which is normally used to transport workers to and from rooftops or buildings under construction.

[Guest]

great save for new york emergency services. my only question is how come they didn't use the resourse of con ed when the back up generators didn't work? con ed is supposed to have large portable ones.