July 19, 2007

NYC steam explosion media roundup

The area around Grand Central remains closed this morning but no asbestos is in the air. Here are some key direct quotes from the media coverage of Wednesday's steam explosion at 41st Street and Lexington Avenue:

Basic facts
"Two were in critical condition with severe burns at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, including the driver of a tow truck that was swallowed by a crater 25 feet wide by 15 feet deep. Officials said the man, burned over 80% of his body, was in a medically induced coma." (Daily News)
Colleagues of the critically injured tow-truck driver, a Brooklyn man in his 20s, said he was making his last run of the day when the street collapsed beneath him. "He's a nice kid, a hard worker. I feel terrible," said Michael Mule, president of the One Stop Shell Towing Co. (Daily News)
Many people were struck by falling chunks of asphalt or rock that had been blasted out of the ground. Mud covered some bystanders. A woman who was bleeding profusely was being helped by police while a man lay on a stretcher in the street. When the steam cleared at nearly 8 p.m., a crater many feet wide was visible in the street. A red truck lay at the bottom of the hole. Two city buses and a small school bus sat abandoned in the middle of Lexington Avenue, covered with grit. (Wall Street Journal)
Consolidated Edison just issued a statement at 7:38 a.m. “urging all customers in the East Midtown area of Manhattan to discontinue their use of non-essential electrical appliances and equipment until problems on electrical cables can be resolved following yesterday’s steam-main rupture.” (NY Times blog)
A school bus that had been carrying 15 children home from the Pierce County Day Camp in Roslyn, L.I., was caught in the middle of the blast - but luckily, the kids had been dropped off minutes earlier. (Daily News)

Details
Con Edison later told reporters the pipe had been checked earlier in the day, due to the morning thunderstorms that flooded the city, but found nothing wrong. (Observer)
The pipe that burst is part of an underground network that Con Edison acquired in the mid-1950s, when it absorbed the old New York Steam Corporation, which started selling steam to Manhattan buildings in 1882. The steam company’s huge generating plants once powered elevators. But as electricity became more widely available the demand for steam power leveled off. (New York Times)

Some pipes carrying steam through the city are wrapped in asbestos, a chemical commonly used until the mid-1970s in insulation and fireproofing material. Its tiny fibers can cause cancer and other ailments when inhaled over many years, according to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. (Associated Press)
The president of TransGas Energy Systems, Adam Victor, said there are 130 miles of steam lines — some more than 100 years old — running between 96th Street and the Battery in Manhattan that serve as the exclusive source of heat to 2,200 buildings, including every major hospital in that area. Sun
Between 1986 and 1997, at least a dozen steam pipes ruptured, killing several people, injuring many others and, in several cases, sending asbestos-laden mud into the air. (New York Times)

Witnesses
"It looked like the World Trade Center had exploded," said Reggie Evans, an office administrator. "As I was running, I got pelted in the head by rocks and concrete." (Post)
Moving-truck driver Barrington Green, 40, of the Bronx, said he had just driven through the intersection when he heard the explosion, looked in his rearview mirror and saw the tow truck being blown about 12 feet in the air. "I was lucky," Green said. "A second or two and I would have been right there." (Daily News)
"The manhole cover was underneath the truck," he said. "Steam and flames were coming up through the manhole." - Barrington Green, again (Post)
“I’ve been to Yellowstone, and that’s what I thought of — the pitch, the volume, the shrieking, the steam and the vibration.” - Tabi Freedman, an information technology specialist who was walking out of Grand Central (New York Times)
I happen to live 3 blocks south of the explosion & it's right out my window. The scene is calm now that police have arrived. But my whole building is vibrating from the rumble of the high-pressure venting. There is steam spewing out of the ground at very high velocity (almost volcano-like); it has torn a 2 lane wide hole in Lex just north of 41st. (Gothamist)
"I work near Grand Central station and the lights flickered across our entire floor around 6PM. Everyone gasped, as it was reminiscent of the blackout a few years ago. Then, immediately, we heard fire/police sirens—I still hear them now. We got an announcement saying that there was an incident in Grand Central. Then, that was revised to a manhole cover was blown on 43rdSt due to a broken transformer." (Curbed)

Based on Wednesday's emergency, this is currently where to go for breaking NYC coverage online (though unfortunately the best coverage was all on TV):

New York Times City Room blog
Gothamist
1010 WINS
NY1
Best breaking news e-mails: MSNBC

July 19, 2007 07:11 AM in Midtown

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