VIDEO: Passengers evacuated from NY Waterway ferry following fire
Written by Heather Ervin
Credit: Screengrab from PIX 11 YouTube
A fire broke out aboard the NY Waterway ferry Father Mychal Judge yesterday during rush hour. The ferry was en route from Pier 11 in Manhattan to Paulus Hook and Liberty Harbor in Jersey City, N.J.
Passengers were promptly transferred to another NY Waterway ferry, the Frank Sinatra.
The ferry is currently being safely towed back to port. NY Waterway reported no injuries among the 37 passengers on board.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
The Father Mychal Judge ferry boat was named in honor of the chaplain to the New York City Fire Department who died during the September 11 attacks in 2001.
NY Waterways entire fleet—24 ferries at the time—were the first boats to respond to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. These ferries were the largest single component in the waterborne evacuation of 500,000 people from Manhattan that day—the largest maritime evacuation in history.
Because of their bow-loading design, NY Waterway’s ferries were pressed into service as waterborne ambulances. The vessels were used to medevac injured firefighters across the Hudson to Colgate. In all, NY Waterway ferries carried about 2,000 injured and taking a total of 158,506 evacuees to points in Jersey City, Hoboken and Weehawken, N.J., as well as Brooklyn and Queens. On a typical day, NY Waterway carries a total of 34,000.
