The Farmingdale High School Tragic Bus Accident

The Farmingdale High School director of bands and a retired social studies teacher were killed, and dozens of members of the school’s marching band were injured, including five critically, when a bus on its way to a band camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania, crashed yesterday down a 50-foot ravine and overturned. Gov. Kathy Hochul, during a news conference last night at State Police headquarters in Middletown, described the crash as a “day of terror” for the 40 students and four adults on board the charter bus operated by Regency Transportation of Nesconset, Long Island. As reported on Newsday.com, the two dead passengers were identified as Gina Pellettiere, 43, of Massapequa, the director of bands at the high school, and Beatrice Ferrari, 77, of Farmingdale, a retired teacher who was acting as a chaperone on the annual trip, said Lt. Col. Richard Mazzone, assistant deputy superintendent of the State Police Department. “Today was a day of terror for 44 passengers,” Hochul said, adding that the students were rescued within 45 minutes. “Imagine the fear. The screams of these high school students, many of them freshmen, surrounded by this chaos. They endured and were strong.” The injured were taken to five area hospitals, Mazzone said, while the most seriously injured went to Westchester Medical Center, a Level 1 trauma center. In total, more than 40 passengers on the bus were hospitalized, officials said. A preliminary investigation indicated that a “faulty front tire” may have been a “contributing factor” to the crash, Mazzone said. In a letter sent late Thursday to the school community, the Farmingdale schools superintendent Paul Defendini said counselors and support staff will be available today "for all students, faculty and staff." At Farmingdale High School last night, parents and community members gathered at the corners of Woodward Parkway and 10th Avenue to wait for the returning buses to roll into the high school parking lot. The buses arrived shortly before 8 p.m. As reported on Newsday.com, community members lit a dozen white candles along Woodward Parkway to “light the way” for the returning students, said Alejandra Loredo, a teaching assistant at Northside Elementary School whose two sons attend another school in the Farmingdale district. Others gathered at intersections along Woodward Parkway, huddling together and leaning on each other. Children and their parents waiting outside the high school also held up white candles and waved their phones, with flashlights on, as frantic parents picked up their children.***Greenport’s East End Seaport Museum’s annual Maritime Festival, scheduled for this Saturday and Sunday has been called off due to an inclement weather forecast except for tonight’s Land and Sea Gala at Crabby Jerry’s at the foot of Main Street in Greenport, which will go on as scheduled. Beth Young of EAST END BEACON also reports that in Hampton Bays, the San Gennaro Feast of the Hamptons, originally scheduled for this weekend, has been rescheduled for Oct. 14 and 15. And East Hampton’s 375th Anniversary Parade scheduled for tomorrow has also been postponed. The East Hampton High School Homecoming Football Game scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday is currently still on. ***The office of Attorney General Letitia James yesterday issued a cease-and-desist letter to a group that voters accused of going door-to-door to “confront voters,” falsely claiming to be election workers and falsely accusing voters of felony election fraud. Michael Gormley reports on Newsday.com that the letter to Newburgh-based NY Citizens Audit Civil Fund ordered it to end any “voter deception and intimidation” or face state and federal charges. The letter was sent by the state attorney general’s office Voting Rights Section chief, Lindsay McKenzie. “These allegations, if true, constitute unlawful voter deception,” M