Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The big news in New Rochelle is in the air – literally. With winds at close to Hurricane strength – gusts in excessed of 60 mph – New Rochelle has experienced some major transportation delays but no reported electrical outages so far.
But the big news for us here at Talk of the Sound is that thanks to our new and improved Yahoo Pipe we broke the news of the roof collapse at the New Rochelle Intermodal Transportation Center here first – beating every traditional news outlet in the area including the Journal News, WCBS Radio and Bloomberg.
Here are some of the Tweets which appeared in New Ro Buzz after the roof collapse shut down train service:
kamander: I was evacuated from my train at New Rochelle after the roof of the overpass was blown right off on top of my train, pulling down all the electrical wires.
ebroms: Sooo the platform above the New Rochelle train station collapsed. Hope everyone’s ok, but now I can’t get into NYC. Lame.
Franklin_Bluth: is currently waiting for the repair teams in New Rochelle to clean up the debris, so he might leave NYC.
JoelEsler: Trains are running late. Apparently a roof collapsed in new rochelle.
utzman: The wind blew the bridge down at the New Rochelle train station.
visitnewhaven: RT WTNH Metro-North New Haven Line service is suspended now between Grand Central and Stamford due to wind and wire damage in New Rochelle.
tomguarriello: Wow, wind blew down walkway over Metro North tracks in New Rochelle. Screwed up NYC travel plans.
JKU821: Just declined interviews with Fox 5 and Eye Witness News in New York about the train delays at New Rochelle caused by the extreme wind.
WTNH: Metro-North New Haven Line service is suspended right now between Grand Central and Stamford due to wind and wire damage in New Rochelle.
Earlier this week, we added a new service to the top/center our home page, re-christening the “Local Roundup” as “New Ro Buzz” to reflect that we have now mashed together traditional media coverage of New Rochelle with Twitter. We’ve also added in blogs as well. We will keeping adding new content with the goal that if someone, somewhere is talking about New Rochelle on the Internet, you will read it here first.
As many people experienced with the Miracle on the Hudson, some of the first reporting and photos were delivered by passengers on the plane and people on the ferry boats which rushed out to rescue passengers of US Airways Flight 1549. That event brought home the power of new technology which lets many cell phone users instantly share photos and observations about breaking news events from the scene.
Earlier today, Metro-North stopped services on the New Haven Line between Stamford and Grand Central Terminal after debris from the elevated walkway in New Rochelle fell onto the overhead electrical wires. Services resumed after 15 minutes but with “significant” delays over an hour or more. Metro-North reported that as of 4:20 PM, all services on the New Haven Line was operating on or close to schedule.
Meanwhile, power is out to over 600,000 electrical company customers between Ohio and New York. In our area, Con Ed is battling downed trees and blown transformers throughout the region.
If you’ve got pictures of wind damage around New Rochelle send it or upload it to Flickr. If you’ve got stories to tell about the windstorm add a comment below.
UPDATE: We just added restaurant views from Yelp.com to the New Ro Buzz. This is a real neat service – similar to Zagat’s but a little more Web 2.0 friendly. If you register, your profile will have a URL associated with it. If enough people were interested, I could set up a special Yahoo Pipe for reader reviews of New Rochelle restaurants via Yelp. All the reviews will appear on the home page via New Ro Buzz but we can also set up a separate section of the site. If you like to dine out and are looking to for an outlet for your inner Craig Claiborne click the CONTACT link above.