Reports: Bloomberg golfing in Bermuda during train derailment

Outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Bermuda playing golf during the Sunday Metro-North commuter train crash that killed four and injured more than 60, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Though the crash occurred at about 7:20 a.m. Eastern time, Bloomberg did not leave the golf course to return to New York until noon Eastern. Upon his return Sunday evening, he visited two hospitals caring for the injured but did not attend any briefings at the accident site during the day.

“What can I do? I’m not a professional firefighter or a police officer. There’s nothing I can do. What I can do is make sure that the right people from New York City – our police commissioner, our fire commissioner and our emergency management commissioner – are there and that they have all the resources that they want,” Bloomberg told reporters who asked about his absence. “I was briefed a few minutes, probably a half an hour after the train wreck, or the first time that I’d heard about it, and we responded in the ways that I think the city should be proud of our emergency first responders. They did exactly what they are supposed to do.”

Bloomberg, who will leave office at the end of the year and will be replaced by mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, has made a point of keeping his personal trips secret while in office. He has been criticized for the practice, especially when he traveled to Bermuda ahead of a major blizzard that hit the city in 2010.

De Blasio, who takes office on Jan. 1 and did not visit the crash site, did not pass judgment on his predecessor but indicated he would have acted differently if he was currently mayor. ““For me, it would be, generally speaking, important to be there,” he said. “My instinct in these things is to be present even if the city is not the lead. Obviously it’s a bit of a case by case situation. But in this case I would have been there.”