Authorities said at a news conference Sunday that the 2001 Ford Excursion limousine the limousine failed to stop at an intersection and plowed into an unoccupied sport-utility vehicle in a parking lot across from the intersection. Two pedestrians there were also struck and died.
The store is a popular stop for tourists on fall foliage trips.
Customers in the parking lot were killed when they were hit by the limo coming down a hill on state Route 30 at “probably over 60 mph,” the store manager, Jessica Kirby, told The New York Times .
In a Facebook post on Saturday, the store thanked emergency responders for their actions. On Sunday, the store posted that it was open “and could use your hugs.”
Witnesses described chaos, with a massive turnout of ambulances and other responders.
“I heard some screaming. It looked serious because people were running back and forth,” Bridey Finegan of Schoharie told WNYT NewsChannel 13 .
Authorities didn’t release names of victims or other specifics, but state police set up a hotline for family members. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
The aunt of one of the victims says the vehicle was on its way to a birthday celebration.
Valerie Abeling says newlyweds Erin Vertucci and Shane McGowan were among those killed. She says Vertucci was 34 and McGowan was 30.
Abeling says her daughter had been invited along but was unable to go.
She says the family has not learned much about the circumstances of the crash.
She says “our lives have been changed forever.”
Officials say Saturday’s crash in Schoharie was the deadliest transportation accident in the U.S. since a 2009 plane crash in Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people.
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Associated Press writer David Klepper in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.
