Posts tagged "Long Island Sound"

By the numbers: How Hurricane Sandy measures up

Here’s a by-the-numbers look at Hurricane Sandy its expected impacts:

THE HURRICANE

— As of midafternoon Monday, sustained winds were reaching 90mph.

— It was moving northwest at 28 mph.

— Winds of tropical force extend almost 500 miles from Sandy’s center.

— Its central barometric pressure reached a record low for the Northeast, 940 millibars, indicating a lot of energy and wind potential.

HUMAN RESPONSE

— More than 7,000 flights have been grounded.

— Some 375,000 people were told to evacuate in New York City.

— The Federal Emergency Management Agency has about 490,000 meals in place in the Northeast, along with more than 150,000 gallons of water.

PREDICTIONS

— The storm could leave 2 to 3 feet of snow in mountainous areas of West Virginia.

— Storm surges in Long Island Sound and New York Harbor could reach 6 to 11 feet above ground. Between Long Island Sound and the Delmarva Peninsula, which includes parts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, surges could reach 4 to 8 feet above ground level.

— Winds of gale force are expected for nearly one-third of the nation, as far west as Ohio.

— Rainfall of up to a foot is expected in some places, especially west of the storm.

Man frees 17-pound lobster from Connecticut restaurant

A Connecticut man purchased a 17-pound lobster at a Waterford restaurant, then released the crustacean back into Long Island Sound.

Don MacKenzie of Niantic tells The Day of New London he knew the lobster, nicknamed “Lucky Larry” by local children, would have to be about 80-years-old to reach his current size and felt it deserved to live.

MacKenzie won’t say how much he paid The Dock restaurant to take Larry off the menu.

He took the lobster back to sea Tuesday, releasing it in a secret location.

MacKenzie received a send-off from a group of children chanting “Let Larry Live” and the lobster was given a salute from the Niantic River Bridge operator who sounded the lift bridge’s siren as the boat carrying it headed back to sea.

Officials work on plan to raise capsized NY yacht; July 4 accident killed 3 children

Authorities were working on plans Friday to raise a capsized yacht where three suburban New York City children died during a Fourth of July outing to watch fireworks and 24 other people were left scrambling for their lives.

The accident left more questions than answers in the search for a definitive cause. Investigators are counting on gaining knowledge from survivors and the boat itself once it is brought up from 60 feet below the surface of Long Island Sound.

James Mercante, lawyer for an insurance company who is representing the boat’s owner, said it appeared that the boat might not get raised before Saturday. He said the expertise of the Coast Guard and the Navy was being tapped for the effort.

Mercante said authorities want to learn whatever they can from the boat.

“Thirty-four foot boats shouldn’t roll over, with or without people on it,” he said.

He said he’d like to know if something mechanical was responsible, “if something gave way.”

Authorities said several possibilities might have combined to doom the vessel known as Candi 1 as it was being positioned so passengers could watch fireworks.

Nassau County Detective Lt. John Azzata said the cause remained under investigation but possibilities include the weather, overcrowding and a wake from another vessel. He said the area was busy with boaters watching the fireworks.

The boat’s skipper, Sal Aureliano, has told TV’s News12 Long Island that he saw two lightning bolts and then a wave suddenly hit the 34-foot boat off Oyster Bay, on the north shore of Long Island.

“It turned the boat around,” he said, his voice cracking. “It just turned the boat. I didn’t see it. It was dark. I didn’t see it.”

“The next thing I know, we’re turning, and we just kept turning, and everybody was in the water. It was chaos,” said Aureliano, who didn’t answer the door to The Associated Press.

Authorities said the children who died got trapped in the cabin.

Killed were Aureliano’s nephew David Aureliano, 12, and two girls, 11-year-old Harley Treanor and 8-year-old Victoria Gaines. No serious injuries were reported by the 24 other adult-and-children passengers who were rescued from the water, mostly by fellow boaters.

The Silverton yacht was built in 1984 but purchased recently. The yacht company filed for bankruptcy in April, and no one was available to say what the maximum number aboard should be.

The boat’s owner is Kevin Treanor, said Mercante, who was hired by an insurance company to represent him. Mercante said he had not spoken with Treanor but emphasized Treanor wasn’t the yacht’s operator when the accident occurred.

Police and the Coast Guard would not say how many of those aboard were adults and how many were children. Safety experts said most boats have a manufacturer’s plate that lists capacity by number of adults and by total weight. So theoretically, a boat could safely handle more passengers if some were children.

Phil Cusumano, a Boston-based safety instructor and yacht captain with 35 years of experience, said there is no question the boat was badly overloaded. He said he would limit a vessel of that size to six adults. Other boating sites suggested a maximum of 15 passengers.

“Twenty-seven is just crazy,” Cusumano said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing that. I wouldn’t do it at the dock, much less take it out on the water. It would tip over with the first turn.”

Each Fourth of July, vessels crowd the Long Island Sound shoreline to watch public and private fireworks displays. When the shows end, the exodus can be the nautical equivalent of a highway traffic jam.

Scott Menzies, who said he positioned his 20-foot motor boat in the area to take in the celebration but did not see the accident, estimated there were at least 1,000 vessels on the water.

“It was pretty crazy,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Mary Esch in Albany, N.Y., and Tom Hays, Larry Neumeister and Colleen Long in New York and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

Boating experts say yacht that capsized off Long Island was overcrowded; 3 children killed

A yacht that capsized with 27 friends and family aboard on an outing to watch Fourth of July fireworks was severely overcrowded and doomed to tip over, safety experts said Thursday as the skipper blamed the tragedy on a wave that came out of the dark.

Three children died after becoming trapped Wednesday night in the cabin of the 34-foot vessel off Oyster Bay, on the north shore of Long Island.

Sal Aurelino, who was at the helm of the Candi I, told TV’s News12 Long Island that he saw two lightning bolts, and then a wave suddenly hit.

“It turned the boat around,” he said, his voice cracking. “It just turned the boat. I didn’t see it. It was dark. I didn’t see it.”

Aurelino’s nephew David Aurelino, 12, and two girls, 11-year-old Harley Treanor and 8-year-old Victoria Gaines, died. The 24 other passengers — a combination of adults and children — were rescued from the water, mostly by fellow boaters, and were not seriously hurt.

“The next thing I know, we’re turning, and we just kept turning, and everybody was in the water. It was chaos,” said Aurelino, who didn’t answer the door to The Associated Press.

The cause of the accident was under investigation, but it could have been the weather, overcrowding, the wake from another vessel, or a combination of factors, said Nassau County Detective Lt. John Azzata. The area was crowded with boaters watching the fireworks, he said.

The Silverton yacht, built in 1984 but purchased recently, was under 60 feet of water Thursday and officials worked to raise it. The yacht company filed for bankruptcy in April, and no one was available to say what the maximum number aboard should be.

Police and the Coast Guard would not say how many of those aboard were adults and how many were children. Safety experts said most boats have a manufacturer’s plate that lists capacity by number of adults and by total weight. So theoretically, a boat could safely handle more passengers if some were children.

Phil Cusumano, a Boston-based safety instructor and yacht captain with 35 years of experience, said there is no question the boat was badly overloaded. He said he would limit a vessel of that size to six adults. Other boating sites suggested a maximum of 15 passengers.

“Twenty-seven is just crazy,” Cusumano said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing that. I wouldn’t do it at the dock, much less take it out on the water. It would tip over with the first turn.”

Each Fourth of July, vessels crowd the Long Island Sound shoreline to watch public and private fireworks displays. When the shows end, the exodus can be the nautical equivalent of a highway traffic jam.

Scott Menzies, who said he positioned his 20-foot motor boat in the same area to take in the celebration but did not see the accident, estimated there were at least 1,000 vessels on the water. “It was pretty crazy,” he said.

However, conditions on the water were calm during the fireworks and afterward, Menzies said.

Though there was some rain around 10 p.m., conditions were in “no way bad enough” to capsize a large boat on their own, said David Waldo, an expert boater who was also on the water Wednesday night.

Waldo, executive director of the WaterFront Center, a nonprofit sailing school in Oyster Bay, called the number of people aboard the yacht “alarming.” School sailboats around the same length have a capacity of seven, he said.

“It’s just asking for a situation where things can go wrong and compound on themselves,” he said.

Another boater told Newsday he saw the yacht turn and then tip over after it was hit by a wake.

“It was like in slow motion,” said Sammy Balasso of Oyster Bay. “All of a sudden, a lot of bodies were in the water.”

Balasso said he put the spotlight of his 38-foot speedboat on the capsized vessel and threw all the life jackets he had into the water. He said he rescued 20 people.

“Everybody was panicking,” Balasso said. “People were saying things like ‘Why?’”

Azzata said the boat should have had a life jacket for each person on board, but it wasn’t yet clear if it did. Under state law, children under 12 are not required to wear life vests if they are in the main cabin, where the three victims were.

Mike Treanor, who was related to some of the victims, answered the door at his suburban home in nearby Huntington.

“It’s a family tragedy,” he said, adding there would be no further comment.

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Associated Press writers Mary Esch in Albany, N.Y., Tom Hays and Colleen Long in New York, and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.