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Groton Daily Independent
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 ~ Vol. 24 - No. 349 ~ 28 of 41
for Wednesday.
Jack Cox, a software developer, said he felt a “large thump” and heard and felt the train grinding for as
long as 30 seconds.
“During the whole time, it was just like ‘What’s going on? What’s going to happen?’ Then it stopped,” he
said. “I didn’t have time to be scared before then, but I looked around and the woman next to me was curled up in some sort of fetal tuck.”
Cox said smoke started coming in from one end of the car.
“It wasn’t heavy smoke, but it was frightening,” he said.
Passengers ended up walking through the darkened cars using their cellphone lights and exiting onto
the platform.
Three other trains approaching the station halted in their tracks. Emergency crews shut off track power
after derailments to prevent evacuees from being electrocuted.
Julian Robinson said he was stuck on one of them for about an hour before rescuers arrived to escort
passengers along the tracks into the station. Pictures and video posted online showed passengers evacu- ating through darkened subway tunnels.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the derailment “an unacceptable manifestation of the system’s current state.”
“It is my expectation that with new leadership brought by Joe Lhota, the MTA will address the fundamental issues plaguing the transit system and overhaul the organizational structure of the MTA,” the Democratic governor said.
The derailment spoiled what should’ve been a bright day for the system, coming roughly two hours before the reopening of a subway station at the southern tip of Manhattan that had been closed since it was ooded by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012. The South Ferry station on the No. 1 line reopened after $340 million worth of repairs.
Lhota, who was appointed as the MTA’s chairman last week with a mandate to get the system back on track, had to skip a planned media tour of the refurbished station to deal with the derailment.
The number of subway delays has tripled in the past ve years, to 70,000 per month. In recent months, several high-pro le incidents have occurred, including subway trains stuck in tunnels for an hour or more. In April, a power outage backed up trains around the city and closed a key Manhattan station for 12 hours.
Commuter railroads also have had problems. A report this month found rush hour cancellations and delays on the Long Island Rail Road at the highest level in 10 years.
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Associated Press writers Deepti Hajela and Karen Matthews contributed to this report.
Clinton campaign chief has closed-door talk with House panel
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman met Tuesday with a House committee investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
John Podesta spoke with members of the House intelligence committee behind closed doors. He told reporters afterward he was “happy to cooperate” but couldn’t say what questions he’d been asked or detail his answers.
The hacking of Podesta’s personal email account and the release of those emails by WikiLeaks during the late stages of the campaign is one focus of the committee’s investigation.
While President Donald Trump has previously declined to name Russia as responsible for election med- dling, in recent days he has referred to Russia in criticizing the Obama administration’s response to the hack. Podesta said the Obama administration was “trying to make the best judgment they could.”
Also Tuesday, a longtime Trump con dant said he would appear before the same House committee next month — also in private.
In a statement, Roger Stone’s lawyer said the political operative has been “much maligned by innuendo and misinformation” regarding the investigations into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Lawyer Robert Buschel said Stone looks forward to providing “a timeline based only on the facts.”