NationStates Jolt Archive


My Home Town Gets the ball rolling! Makes national news!

SaintB
12-07-2007, 18:40
Seattle Times (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003784005_ball11.html)
Pittsburgh Post Gazzette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07193/801183-151.stm)
Meadville Tribune (local paper) (http://www.meadvilletribune.com/local/local_story_192232414.html)

Meadville Tourism Bureau, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

On Monday morning, a 1,500-pound wrecking ball came loose from its cable and rolled down North Main Street in Meadville, Pa., ricocheting from curb to curb, smashing cars, until it rear-ended an Allegheny College student sitting in his car at a light.

He, another driver and the crane operator were all injured; it's kind of amazing nobody needed to be hospitalized after a rampage like that.

That might change if the wrecking ball were fitted with horns, of course.

It was an accident this time, but Meadville -- or, heck, any town that wants to drum up some tourism with a violent new festival -- could become a world-famous destination if The Rolling of the Balls became a regular event with proper marketing.

Is your strawberry festival going soft? Church carnival attendance dropping off? County fair deteriorating to poor? Get a wrecking ball -- maybe two or three, if you've got wide streets -- and drop it off a crane just uphill of a big group of runners. You'd have to wall off the street to contain the mayhem, but think of the revenue for hotels, restaurants, parking garages, drugstores, ambulance services, chiropractors and reconstructive dentists.

Of course, to really get the word out, you need a famous writer to come out and do a book about the festival, maybe even participate.

I am not available. I prefer to sleep in. Also, I am sane.



Yep.. no serious injuries, everyone is ok but the damage is upward of $75,000. All in all... its pretty funny way to make the headlines.
Cookesland
12-07-2007, 18:58
change your town motto to "We got balls" :p
IL Ruffino
12-07-2007, 19:01
Please..

It didn't even make WNEP.. :p
Troglobites
12-07-2007, 19:01
*wishes he was there to see it happen, in a safe place of course*
Infinite Revolution
12-07-2007, 19:01
change your town motto to "We got balls" :p

or "we dropped a ball"

edit: that's funnier ifyou use bollock instead of ball, nevermind.
Andaluciae
12-07-2007, 19:03
Hehe...he's got a ball in his trunk...hehe...
Johnny B Goode
12-07-2007, 19:24
"But we've got the biggest balls of them all!" - Big Balls, AC/DC
Nivalc
12-07-2007, 19:29
I heard about this on the radio in NY, the same one that carys the New York Yankees.(AM 880). gLAD no one got killed!
LancasterCounty
12-07-2007, 19:30
That is very funny.

BTW: where is Meadville, PA?
JuNii
12-07-2007, 19:36
until it rear-ended an Allegheny College student sitting in his car at a light.

ok... am I the only one with a picture of this wreaking ball coming to a stop after... 'rear-ending' the STUDENT and not the car he's sitting in? :p

Buns of Steel! :p
Cookesland
12-07-2007, 19:38
oooo let me check The Inquirer and see if it was in there...

EDIT: lINKY (http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20070709_ap_rollingwreckingballdamagescarsinjures3.html)
SaintB
12-07-2007, 20:20
That is very funny.

BTW: where is Meadville, PA?

About 90 miles due north of Pittsburgh, located in northwestern Pennsylvania about 30 miles from Lake Erie, Ohio, and New York State. Major highway hub between 4 large cities.
JuNii
12-07-2007, 21:01
oooo let me check The Inquirer and see if it was in there...

EDIT: lINKY (http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20070709_ap_rollingwreckingballdamagescarsinjures3.html)
:p
"All of a sudden the back windshield exploded and I hit the car in front of me," said Habay, 20, a junior at Allegheny College. "I thought a car hit the back of me, but when I turned around, I couldn't see anything."

http://media.philly.com/images/20070711_inq_wreck11-a.JPG

So he didn't see his trunk popped up?