of an adjustment right there. yes, you can. and but you see that a fair ways off from the coast. well, yeah. and the ferry the ride itself is very it s 22 minutes across, you know, about five miles of water. it s a very short ride. and people take it as a daily routine, the ferry, so they re all accustomed to the sounds and feelings of the boat. and yes, you could feel the engine go into reverse. i just took the ferry myself last week, and you know that it s preparing to dock, and there are plenty of announcements. in fact, after the 2003 fatal crash of the same ferryboat, the andrew j. barberry in 2003 where 11 passengers were killed, many, many safety measures were put into place about where you can stand on the boat during the docking procedure. i can imagine. and the irony, this being the very same boat. of course, i m sure it has nothing to do with this extent, that having been, what six and a half years ago? that s correct. and there was another ferry
there was one eyewitness on board, a male passenger, who said he heard over the loud speaker someone say brake, brake! and then the ferry, you know, slammed in there and bounced after a bit off that dock. no, i haven t i haven t heard any of those reports. i can tell you, though, that i ve taken the ferryboat many times, i m a lifelong staten islander and the ferry is our connection to manhattan island and the burrows, so we have taken the ferryboat. we know that each docking is a little different, depending on the currents, the weather. so every time the ferryboat docks, passengers are sort of prepared to feel something. a little bump or some kind of small impact. so i don t know i haven t heard about any kind of a warning that was issued on this boat. you know, i ve taken it a few times, not nearly as many as you have certainly, but my recollection is that you can actually feel the engine slowing down or being thrust into reverse. i mean, you kind of if you re standin
there, and then they hope, as early as monday, to start piping the oil out through that pipe, to the boat, and to seriously curtail the leak. because this the leak that the containment dome now covers is responsible for about 85% of the oil that is flowing into the gulf. and if this works, then they ll bring a second containment dome over the second leak. but they are not stopping there. because quite frankly, the odds of this working are extraordinarily high. this has never been tested before at this depthing, and so they re working on two other strategies. one would be to essentially clog the leaks with rubber cuttings, and the second strategy is to put a blowout preventer on top of the one that s down there, the one that apparently did not work, and see if this new blowout preventer to stcould st the leak. so there is a lot of hope riding on the containment dome, but no
hospital for evaluation, because some of the deck hands actually helped to lower the bridge to brace the impact as the boat came in too fast into the slip. apparently, the deck hands this is what we re hearing from callers to the newspaper. the deck hands sort of jumped to the scene and lowered the bridge to brace the boat and lessen the impact. okay. so now i m trying to figure out what that would be in terms of lowering the bridge. you being there on staten island, i m sure you use the ferry more frequently than i do. that would be to basically create an impact to keep the ferry from going further into the terminal? yeah, there is a bridge that gets lowered as the ferry docks into the slip. a bridge is lowered to connect the terminal to the boat. and apparently this bridge was used this was what one of the callers told us, about a deck hand who participated and tried to brace the impact or lessen the impact of the boat. claire, are you hearing what was reported over the lou
crash last july, a different boat, and that was because of a power failure. and there are reports that may indeed be the case on this one, as well. of course, new york officials have yet to confirm anything at this point. but i want to confirm what you re saying, as well, claire, with regard to the number of injuries. we re getting a source here that says 37. that concurs with the number you have, and the number may pluck ate, but all injuries are minor, with the exception of one, which is being called as you described it, nonlife threatening. so we re absolutely backing up your obviously excellent reporting there from on-scene. and alex, i can tell you there were 252 passengers on board this 9:00 a.m. boat out of the white hall terminal. okay. thank you for that detail, as well. claire reagan from the staten island advance. thanks, claire. you re welcome. that is our top story right now. we ll take a short break and see if we can get some more information, and put in other n