I happened to be passing Wellwood Cemetery on the way to work when I saw smoke billowing up from the center of the property. You don’t see that everyday. So I drove into the cemetery and snapped a picture and some video with my BlackBerry.
The cops hadn’t arrived yet, but I learned later that no one was hurt, thank goodness.
After so many years in the business, I don’t often save “clips” anymore. But this is a story of which I am particularly proud to have covered.
On the morning of New Year’s Day, my wife nudged me awake: “Carl, I think you need get up. There’s a gas leak and there’s going to be a press conference at William Floyd” – the high school not three minutes from my home.
I called Newsday’s Long Island Desk to see if there was anything I could do to help. Turned out, with the combination of it being a Saturday and a national holiday, few people were available to get to the scene quickly.
I got to the high school just before local and county officials began what would be the first in a number of updates for about 150 residents from the 900 homes and businesses that were evacuated after a propane tank behind the Kohl’s department store in Shirley started leaking thousands of gallons of gas from a cracked plastic valve.
The tank was still leaking, and no one was sure when it would be fixed, how long people would be kept out of their homes or exactly how serious the situation was. If ignited, could it level the area?
More: Newsday’s coverage
While many were able to find other accommodations, the people at this makeshift Red Cross evacuation center — tired, confused and concerned — had nowhere else to turn.
I wound up staying at the center for 10 hours, all the while sending phone and email dispatches, as well as photos from my little Canon Elph. And tweeting, of course. News crews from around the region descended on the center, and Newsday staffers were soon going after every angle.
By mid-afternoon, I was quickly able to recite the stories of many evacuees.
When updates from officials went dry, I went hunting for information at locations across the area. I got turned away at the entrance of the emergency disaster headquarters set up at Brookhaven Calabro Airport, until another official I had been in touch with throughout the day called to let me know the “hot zone” had been deemed safe and people were about to be informed that they would soon be let back into their homes.
I got back to the evacuation center, now the only journalist at the scene, just in time to see a police captain to inform the crowd of the good news. They all erupted in cheer.
It’s a sight I won’t forget any time soon.
Here it is: the new News12.com.
After over a year of noodling, we launched the site in March. It comes with loads of new features, including streaming video, user-generated photos and videos and the ability to customize pages, to name a few.
I feel like a proud papa all over again.
The News 12 online Voter Guide provided an easy-to-use interactive map that outlined all of the races throughout Long Island, with bios of candidates and videos of candidates’ final statements from News 12 televised debates.
The Voter Guide was supplemented by the Island Vote ’08 live blog from four election headquarters across Long Island. Each producer was given a Flip cam and a laptop, and in four hours, we produced nine raw videos and about 30 quality posts. We also had a producer at headquarters firing off Twitter updates throughout the night and ongoing breaking news stories on our main site.
On a mission
From Long Island Business News
Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem
Carl Corry
09-08-2006
It was December 2001 and the emotional wounds of 9/11 were still fresh. My brother Chris and I took the 90-minute drive to Bay Ridge to see Dad before he left for the restaurant. Dad owned a 40-seat Italian bistro on Third Avenue – a polished gem with a steady stream of regulars.
On one side sat Brooklyn’s political elite. On the other, the neighborhood’s top mobsters. The two sides joked and drank together as if they were the best of friends. Until, of course, they exited the front door, and the world assumed its proper balance.
Even though I knew my father regularly dealt with the seamier side of society, I was surprised by the phone conversation he’d had while Chris and I watched the football game, waiting for Dad to go with us for a couple of slices.
“Yes. I’d like you to pick up four people from the Brooklyn penitentiary,” he said, giving the dispatcher instructions to the restaurant. “Around 3 o’clock. And I’d like a car to pick them up around 8. Thanks.”
Chris and I looked at each other. We didn’t say it, but we were both thinking: Did you hear what I just heard?
Dad didn’t give us an explanation after he hung up, and we didn’t ask. My brother and I ate some pizza with Dad, stopped by our grandparents’ house, then headed home.
That’s when our stepmother, Roberta, called.
“You wouldn’t believe what your father just did,” she said from her cell phone.
“I’m sitting next to him in the car and he calls some taxi service to confirm the pickup of four people from the Brooklyn penitentiary. He wants to bring them to the restaurant,” she said. “My mouth fell open. Then he tells them he wants a car to come get them and bring them back. To prison!”
I tell Roberta that Chris and I had the same reaction.
“That’s not the half of it! But it’s not what you think. Instead of being a bad thing, it’s one of the nicest things in the world.”
It turns out the people being picked up were missionaries from the South. They were among the volunteers cleaning up apartments in Battery Park that were damaged when the twin towers fell. This group helped Joe and Susan Guzman, friends of my father and Roberta. The Guzmans’ apartment overlooked the World Trade Center. Their windows were blown out by a vortex created by the tumbling debris.
Furniture, books and keepsakes were sucked clear out of the apartment, and Susan would have been sucked out, too, if she hadn’t locked herself in the bathroom just in time.
The missionaries, who waded through inches of gray dust for weeks to help salvage peoples’ homes, were staying in prison cells at the penitentiary. And as a token of appreciation, Dad’s friends offered to pay for their dinner at the restaurant.
With another tough day waiting for them, the missionaries needed to get back early.
Around 8 p.m.
Dad and Roberta picked up the car fare.