Dear Editor:
I am writing to you to share my experience and that of thousands of other commuters on August 14, 2003, the day of the Blackout.
At 5 p.m., when five of my co-workers and I decided to head for the West 38th Street NY Waterway ferry terminal on that fateful afternoon, little did we know we were about to embark on a six-hour commute from hell. It was a nightmarish commute home that was compounded by the total lack of organization on the part of NY Waterway personnel. We stood on line along 12th Avenue for over four hours, and not once and I repeat, not once, did we see a NY Waterway representative come by with a bull horn to offer information, to prevent hundreds of other people from cutting in line, to set some kind of order, to organize things.
While on that line, I personally saw four people being pulled from the crowd by EMTs; one had an asthma attack while the other three had fainted, and that is only what was happening around us. I am sure many more succumbed to the heat and humidity of that day. We felt helpless and alone with no information as to what was happening.
As we inched our way closer to the terminal, I could see the boats going back and forth. It seemed to me that the boats looked as if they were not carrying too many people. I thought that was odd since I was expecting them to be fully loaded. I commute on the ferry every day, and I know that the boats traveling to Port Imperial can accommodate almost 200 people.
During our last hour on line, we could hear sporadic shouts from in front of us of ‘Weehawken,’ but there was no one to inform us what those shouts meant. As we got closer to the ramp, one police officer shouted that there was a boat for Weehawken, and we ran for it. It was a little past 11 p.m. We sat down and were relieved to be on the boat as last, and as I looked around, I could see that the boat was about 1/4 full when it pulled from the dock. I looked at the hundreds of people still left on line. What a sin! We had stood on line for over four hours, and I quickly realized that this did not have to be, had there been some kind of plan or organization.
The grief that NY Waterway has put us through was totally unnecessary. Those boats should have been filled to capacity on each trip. Thousands upon thousands of people suffered needlessly due to NY Waterway’s lack of organization, and it is a shame.
How could this have happened? NY Waterway, I am sure, has emergency plans in place but it seems they were not used on that day.
I fully expect an explanation and an apology from NY Waterway, not only to me but also my fellow commuters from West 38th Street on that day.
Respectfully,
Desiree Palma