Lightning Strikes Edgewood Home
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A swift response by an observant neighbor and the Scarsdale Fire Department was instrumental in saving a Bradley Road home that was struck by lightning during a violent storm on Friday, September 7th.
Frank Colella and his daughter were both in the house shortly before 6 pm when lightning struck, but initially did not realize what had happened. In fact, the daughter was on the phone with her mother, Pat, who was in lower Manhattan at the time and the call got cut off. Not realizing what had happened, the daughter called her mother back on her cell phone and continued to chat. A few minutes later, the 17-year-old heard a crinkling sound in the attic and feared there were squirrels in the house. She yelled down to her dad to come upstairs -- and when he pulled down the Bessler stairs to the attic to investigate he found the insulation melting, saw flames and closed the stairs back up.
They both ran downstairs to call the fire department but found that their phone line had been knocked out. Fortunately, by that time, neighbor and volunteer firefighter Jeff Hill had called 911 and ran into the house to tell the Colella’s to get out. He had heard thunder, seen a flash of light and smoke coming from the Colella’s roof. Three to five minutes later, the fire department was there and went to work to save the house.
Eight vehicles from Scarsdale, along with crews from Hartsdale and the County came to the house which is near the corner of Boulevard in Edgewood. The firefighters acted quickly and aggressively and were able to confine the fire to one end of the attic and prevent it from spreading to the rest of the house.
Firefighters opened up the roof to vent the attic and also had to open up the ceilings to the second floor to fully extinguish the flames. The attic and the roof suffered structural damage and there was smoke and water damage on the first and second floors. The house is now uninhabitable.
Scarsdale’s Fire Captain McIlvain was the tour commander and Captain Mann served as the safety captain. In addition to the professional staff, 23 volunteers along with several off duty career staff and a mutual aid FAST team from Hartsdale assisted with the effort. No one was injured. According to Captain Mann, if the firemen had not acted so quickly, the fire would have destroyed the house. Scarsdale Fire Chief Thomas M. Cain said, “The early notification, rapid response and diligent work by our firefighters surely kept this from being a total loss.”
The family has moved to a hotel as the attic is thoroughly burnt and there is extensive damage on the second floor. The first floor of the home has smoke and water damage and Colella is not sure what can be saved. Firefighters did allow the family to go back in and gather some of their belongings and they were able to retrieve family photos from the basement. They grabbed the clothes they could find and a helpful neighbor spent all day Sunday doing laundry to try to save at least some of their belongings.
Pat says she is “stunned, shocked and overwhelmed” by what happened but extremely grateful to the fire department for ensuring the safety of her husband and daughter and saving the house.
She is also very grateful to the members of the Scarsdale Congregational Church who rallied around her family as well as many of their Edgewood neighbors. Members of the church and friends came to the house immediately to help and have done everything from finding them lodging to giving them gift cards for meals and providing emotional support.
Contractor Found Dead in Scarsdale Basement
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On the morning of August 29 Scarsdale Police got a call from a worried relative of a contractor who had been working in Scarsdale the previous day. The man failed to return home that night.
Police went to the Birchall Road home where the man was working to investigate and found the deceased contractor in a narrow crawl space of the basement where he had been working on the electrical lines. When his body was found, he was still holding an electrical wire. It appeared that the cause of death was electrocution.
The victim was identified as Michael Macol, age 47 of Bethel CT. In order to remove the body from the house, the electricity had to be disconnected and a temporary generator brought in to light up the crawl space. The Scarsdale Fire Department and a Technical Rescue Team from the White Plains Fire Department removed Macol’s body from the home.
Macol had been working at the house with the general contractor on Tuesday and the contractor finished his work and left the job first. When the residents returned home at 8 pm Tuesday night, they found the electrician’s van in their driveway but did not know why it was still there. Presumably, they went to sleep uaware that Macol's body lay in their basement.
The Scarsdale Police Department Investigations Section and the Westchester County Medical Examiner’s Office are investigating the death, and a final determination of the cause is pending.
Billboard Wars Continue at Westchester Train Stations
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The billboard wars continue at Metro North train stations where now a third group has launched a campaign. The controversy began in July when an anti-Israel group named the Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine (COPIP) posted anti-Israel billboards at Westchester train stations. The posters contended that Israel had taken Palestinian land and turned the Palestinians into refugees -- and some called them “grossly distorted” and “misleading.” To counter the COPIP campaign, Stand With Us launched their own campaign, defending Israel and pointing the finger at the Palestinians for refusing to accept compromises for peace.
Now the American Freedom Defense Initiative has entered the fray and inflamed those on both sides of the conflict. The new billboard, which is posted at the Scarsdale Train Station, reads, “*19,250 Deadly Islamic Attacks Since 9/11/01 *and counting. Not Islamophobia, It’s Islamorealism.”
John Harris, a Scarsdale resident and Chair of the N.Y. Chapter of the Anti-Defamation League said, “It’s unfortunate that some people are trying to reduce the difficult issues in the Middle East to slogans on billboards. The latest Westchester ads by American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group headed by the anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller, are offensive and inflammatory. Being pro-Israel doesn’t mean being anti-Muslim and anti-Arab. Suspecting a “jihadist” motivation by everyone who follows Islam contributes to an atmosphere where hatred and discrimination are easily justified. Geller has a First Amendment right to spread her views, but she does Israel no service by her bigoted attacks on all Islam. The ADL hopes that our Muslim neighbors recognize that Geller’s campaign reflects the thinking of a very small minority in the Jewish community and trust that they also understand, as do we, the dangers posed by extremists in all of our faiths.”
Last year the American Freedom Defense Initiative proposed posting an ad on city buses that read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man,” and then between two Stars of David had the words, “Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
The MTA rejected the ad on the basis that it violated its prohibition on messages that demean individuals or groups on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or other characteristics.
However, last week U.S. District Court Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled that the ad was political speech as it expressed a pro-Israel perspective, and as such was protected under the First Amendment.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) objected to the advertisement from the anti-Muslim group as “highly offensive and inflammatory,” but said it agreed with a federal judge’s finding that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was wrong in rejecting it.
“We support the court’s conclusion that the ad is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, yet we still strongly object to both the message and the messenger,” said Ron Meier, ADL New York Regional Director. “We believe these ads are highly offensive and inflammatory. Pro-Israel doesn’t mean anti-Muslim. It is possible to support Israel without engaging in bigoted anti-Muslim and anti-Arab stereotypes.”
More information on Geller can be found here:
Henry Clifford of COPIP Responds to Article on Scarsdale10583
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We received the following comment from Henry Clifford, Chair of the Committee for Peace in Israel/Palestine about an article on billboards the group sponsored that are now posted at Westchester Metro North train stations. According to their website, COPIP advocates a two-state solution to the conflict in the Middle East ― a complete withdrawal by Israel from the Occupied Territories, an autonomous and contiguous state for the Palestinians, an end to violence on both sides, and mutually recognized, secure borders for both countries.
Here are Mr. Clifford’s comments on the article:
As the sponsor of the MTA posters that introduced the discussion (wars) and Chairman of COPIP I ask to comment on your coverage of 8/14/12 which has just come to my attention.
- You describe our committee as "an anti-Israel group." Your charge is baseless and false. The founding members of our committee were one half Christian and one half Jewish.
- You state that "the posters contended that Israel had taken Palestinian land . . ." We contend nothing, we present the historical and geographical fact which can be obtained from UN, Israeli, and Palestinian documentation.
- The newer posters "contend" 19,250 deadly Islamic attacks with no source or proof provided which contention you evidently accept without question. Regardless of any other consideration or red herring the fact remains that the Palestinians have lost most of their homeland. There is no spin that can obviate that fact.
Removing Stop Signs Can Have Serious Consequences
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This letter was sent to Scarsdale10583 by Harry Reynolds of Scarsdale, in response to a series of pranks involving stop signs: To the fools who several times between July 27th and July 30th removed stop signs at Carman, Nelson, and Edgewood Roads, thereby endangering the very lives of men, women, and children, take this warning:
Do not think that the maximum risk entailed by the removal of a stop sign will be a police visit to your homes. Putting aside the minor issue of theft, should deaths occur in consequence of your removal of a stop sign, your conduct may constitute at least the felony of criminally negligent homicide or the greater felony of recklessly committed manslaughter in the second degree, to say nothing of lesser but serious crimes should injuries occur. In the language of the street, “If you do the crime, be prepared to do the time.”
In 1996, three friends in their early 20's removed a Florida stop sign as a prank. It caused the deaths of three teen-agers who drove into the path of an eight-ton truck. The three friends were each sentenced in 1997 to 15 years in prison where they remained until 2001 when their manslaughter convictions were reversed, and a new trial ordered, because of prejudicial statements by the prosecutor in summation. State v. Miller and Cole, 782 So.2d 426; State v. Baillie, 782 So.2d 435.
Rely on it. When you are tried in Westchester County, great care will be taken to avoid any error in your conviction.
Harry Reynolds
