Nearly 900 passengers have been evacuated from a Staten Island Ferry ship following a fire in the ship’s engine room, a news outlet reported.
The New York City Fire Department said units responded to a report of a fire in the engine room of a ship in upper New York Harbor shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, WNBC-TV reported.
Five people were reported to have been injured, three of whom required hospital treatment, WNBC said.
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There were approximately 868 people on the ship, Sandy Ground, with an additional 16 crew members, Deputy Deputy Fire Chief Frank Leeb said at a news conference.
People board the Staten Island Ferry at the Whitehall Terminal, on Aug. 4, 2022, in New York. Emergency personnel evacuated nearly 900 passengers from the shuttle on December 22, 2022.
(AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
The US Coast Guard evacuated the passengers to the St. George Ferry Terminal on Staten Island. Ferry crew members were also taken off the ship. The evacuation took less than an hour, the television station reported.
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The department will wait at least 24 hours and monitor temperatures before entering the engine room to determine if the fire has been fully extinguished, Leeb said. The fire was contained in the ship’s engine room and chimney, the fire department said.
Leeb credited the ship’s crew for promptly notifying the Coast Guard. “They were also very quick to make sure they sealed off the engine room, evacuated the area” and injected CO2 into the room to remove oxygen, Leeb said.
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The New York City Department of Transportation said Sandy Ground was temporarily anchored near Bayonne, New Jersey, while passengers were transferred. A NY Waterway spokesman said one of its shuttles helped with the evacuation.
