NEW YORK, July 19, 2007
Air Quality Questioned After NYC Explosion
Officials Say Some Asbestos Found In Debris, But Not In Air From Steam Pipe Blast
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Dust Settles After NYC Blast
New York City officials say the explosion of an 80-year-old, asbestos-covered steam pipe left contamination in the dirt and debris, but no asbestos in the air. Bianca Solorzano reports.
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NYC Pipe Blast Causes Panic
News of an explosion at Grand Central Station sent many New Yorker's running for cover. But as Bianca Solorzano reports, fears of a terrorist attack soon shifted to concern over asbestos exposure.
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80-Year-Old Steam Pipe Bursts
NYC's mayor blames the blast on old infrastructure. The explosion has claimed one life so far and critically injured two people. Officials are checking for asbestos residue. Drew Levinson reports.
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New York City police officers wear masks while blocking pedestrians from entering Park Avenue above 40th Street on July 19, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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A woman pulls a suitcase past the site of a steam pipe explosion in midtown Manhattan on July 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)
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A tow truck sits in a hole in the street after an underground steam pipe exploded in New York City on July 18, 2007. (AP Photo/William Regan)
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New York City police and fire officials arrive at the scene of a steam pipe explosion near Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on July 18, 2007. (AP)
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Smoke billows above the East Side of Manhattan after a steam pipe explosion on July 18, 2007. (CBS)
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Photo Essay
NYC Steam Explosion
Midtown Manhattan gets a serious scare after an underground pipe explodes.
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America On Guard
The Homeland Security Department, the terror alert system, preparedness quiz and more.
The city's Office of Emergency Management said in a statement that long-term health problems from the rupture of the 83-year-old steam pipe and its debris were "unlikely."
"We will be going over every street," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "We'll be checking the air. We'll be checking what's on the ground."
Streets were still closed Thursday morning around the crater left by the eruption near Grand Central Terminal, creating near-gridlock during the morning rush. New Yorkers streamed down Park Avenue, some wearing masks to filter the air as they weaved around utility trucks amid the sound of jackhammers. Clumps of office workers, BlackBerries in hand, huddled on corners for word on whether their offices would open.
"I'm mostly calm and collected," said Tony Vcaj, 26, who was outside his closed building at 42nd Street and Third Avenue. He was trying to reach his boss to figure out the day's game plan.
Officials determined that buildings near the explosion site are structurally sound, but OEM told CBS station WCBS-TV that people who work in the area will not be allowed into the area, dubbed the "frozen zone," between East 40th and East 43rd streets and between Third and Vanderbilt avenues.
The loud, rumbling eruption began shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday, breaking windows and rattling buildings as the pipe spewed steam, dirt and debris hundreds of feet into the air. One woman died of an apparent heart attack, and about 30 people were injured, four seriously.
Officials quickly ruled out terrorism as the cause of the blast, but for some witnesses, the explosion, dust and chaos were frighteningly reminiscent of the scene on Sept. 11, 2001.
"We were scared to death. It sounded like a bomb hit or a bomb went off, just like 9/11. People were hysterical, crying, running down the street," said Karyn Easton, a customer at a salon a few blocks from the site of the blast. "It was really surreal."
City crews worked overnight to assess and repair the damage and to determine what happened. Most subway service was restored, though most of the trains were passing Grand Central.
On Thursday, asbestos contamination was the main lingering health concern, Bloomberg said. Some of the pipes that pump steam beneath the city to heat and cool thousands of buildings are wrapped in asbestos, which can cause cancer and other serious illnesses with prolonged exposure.
Area residents were urged to keep windows closed, and anyone exposed to the falling debris was instructed to wash carefully and isolate the clothing they were wearing in plastic bags. Eight air samples in the area around the explosion found no sign of asbestos, but six of 10 samples of debris and dust came back positive, the emergency-management agency said Thursday.
City engineers also warned that up to six feet surrounding the giant hole might be in danger of further collapse, and officials said workers would not be allowed into office buildings in a zone that covered several blocks.
Officials said the steam pipe might have exploded under pressure caused by an infiltration of cold rainwater, or it might have been damaged by a water main break.
Con Edison head Kevin Burke said the site had been inspected hours before the blast as part of a routine response to heavy rain that flooded parts of the city. He said crews had found nothing as they searched for steam rising from manhole covers or cracks in the street — indications that pipes could be in jeopardy. The steam systems are normally inspected every six weeks.
It was rush hour Wednesday evening when the geyser erupted, generating a tremendous roar as 200-degree vapor sprayed as high as the top of the nearby Chrysler Building. Steam and dirt boiled from the ground for hours.
Several people were struck by falling chunks of asphalt or rock that had been blasted out of the ground. Mud covered others. A woman who was bleeding heavily was helped by police while a man lay on a stretcher in the street.
When the steam dispersed almost two hours later, a large crater was visible in the street and a red truck lay at the bottom of the hole. Two city buses and a small school bus sat abandoned and covered with grit in the middle of Lexington Avenue.
The steam pipes have ruptured before. In 1989, a steam pipe explosion near Gramercy Park killed three people and spewed loads of asbestos into the air — a fact that Con Ed later admitted it concealed for days while residents were exposed.
That explosion was caused by a condition known as "water hammer," in which water condenses in a closed section of pipe. The sudden mix of hot steam and cool water can cause pressure to skyrocket, bursting the pipe.
Authorities Thursday couldn't immediately account for how the most seriously wounded victims of the latest eruption were hurt. Police said the woman who died, identified as Lois Baumerich, 57, of Hawthorne, N.J., suffered cardiac arrest.
She and 15 other people were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where two seriously injured patients were being treated in a trauma unit, hospital spokesman Stephen Bohlen said. Two other people were in critical condition at New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center, said hospital spokeswoman Emily Berlanstein.
Among the injured were several firefighters and police Officer Robert Mirfield, who helped evacuate 75 people trapped in a nearby office building by cutting open a gate, authorities said.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 56 CommentsThanks fascistusa for this posting.
-With all this I'll never be able to sleep without having the American People remove this tyrants' spokesperson whom I called from the beginning the George Walking-Liar Bush.
Is this the government and under-government we're fighting for?
Again ZEITGEISTmovie.com just copy paste in your URL and lay back. Warning: it may take almost 2 hours, but so rich, so controversial!
-slim1h2o, you're funny! Was your posting controversial too?
Posted by grazinggoat at 08:48 AM : Jul 19, 2007
That's the way it goes I guess.
The US is under the control of a cabal of dangerous, lying fascist NeoCorporate profiteers, who will do anything to retain their power and control.
The fact that the White House lied to NYC residents about air quality while destroying the world's biggest crime scene still lingers in the minds of three-quarters of the citizens of this once-great society...
Get out of the US. We don't need you and don't want you.
"Get out of the US. We don't need you and don't want you"
How much do these posters get paid by the Pentagoons to sit and type this garbage? Polls don't lie, something really stinks in Washington, and the voters know it.
If i had not Grown up in a third world Country(Fathers Co. shipped us overseas)where things like this happened all the time...Warnings Against ,Opposing factions,Terror etc.. then a Bomb explodes, or a plant blows up, or a car backfires into an "explosion"... ...Many of these Third world Govt.'s saw the benefits to keeping the populace in fear ... I am wondering if we are not seeing some of the same stuff here
Call me crazy,.. 1, ONE day after a report sayin' the Boogey man terrorists are " Comin' ta get ya"/... this happens..???in NYC ? Why do these strange coincidences always seem to Happen w/ li'l georgie and company?? I am not a "conspiracy" guy... but somehow...i'm leery this was a manufactured explosion. I blame my upbringing...this could not Happen in my USA..could it ?..hope not..lol
~~~
I feel safer already. Wait a minute! Isn't this what they said about 911? Aren't they being proved wrong on a daily basis?
A great bumper sticker: "If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention"
And do they feel compelled to be honest now??
Posted by BareEmperor
Nothing!!! I get paid nothing for what I say. I'm just sick and tired of reading all of these journals writen about different subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with G W Bush, the White House, Cheney, you-name-it, etc., and reading all of these worthless, good-for-nothing, pathetic, makes-me-want-to-vomit comments by all of these liberals who have absolutely nothing better to do!!! Come on, people!!! Move on and get a life!!!
Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security's gut feeling that an act of terror was looming was largely ridiculed last week so the almighty has intervened to make a profound statement on behalf of the need to be aware of ones surroundings at all times.
How do they fit a donut through those things?
Anyways, those two on the left look like they're in love.
Posted by rushman71
I agree, all people making oppositional comments about the free market, privatization of production, resources and capital, the war on terror, disaster response within the boundries of the U.S. etc. are all liberals and need to either be with those who are in power or shutup. Your comments are quite relevant to the story and I applaud you. You are a true patriot defending the freedom to expect loyalty to the ideology of global trade and privitization which is the foundation of the leaders you so eloquently have spoken in defense of.
Posted by dodaz
Of course it could never happen here. Even though the U.S. government under the illusive influence of private capital has been funding and arming conservative right wing dictatorships in latin american countries for decades enabling them to suppress or conquer any democratically elected leaders who would otherwise jeoparize the free market interests of global business, these powers would never act in such away that would compromise the democratic way of life for american people, ever, even though president Bush does acknowledge the efficiency of a dictatorship so long as he were the dictator this is never a condition the american people should concern themselves with. These concerns are for the crazy, stupid, ignorant liberals who need to just shut up.
Posted by rushman71
I agree, true patriots would agree with Grover Nordquist who once stated government needs to be shrunk to a size so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. This would permit the freedoms necessary for global business to better manage and control it's capital. If the south had not had the north impose big government on them at the time of the civil war, who knows how much profit and growth could have occurred as a result of the cotton textile resources industries that lost instead the ability to flourish. The south most likely could have been much wealthier than it has ended up being. Big government destroyed the south's free market and it has proved a disaster.
Posted by mjlewis6 at 10:51 AM : Jul 19, 2007
Amen,.. brother,.. I agree! and to drummer as well! Everybody is getting googly eyed again.
nice to see there's a couple people who are'nt
Posted by mjlewis6
The free market is best to determine if this infrastructure should be repaired. Certainly if not repairing the infrastructure negatively impacts global free trade then it must be repaired. On the other hand, it may prove more cost effective if Manhattan is moved to another area if from a business perspective upgrading isn't prudent. The New Orleans case is a example of this dilemma. It could very make much better business sense to outsource. Haliburton is now off U.S. soil insuring the reduction of overhead caused by big government taxation. If the profit margin is high enough it's possible higher quality engineering and materials could be employed that would allow for at least 15 years of trouble free service.
Posted by dodaz
I'm not sure what your point is, but bleeding heart liberals are to blame for the war on the free market, privatization, human and environmental foolishness. These enemies of capitalism resulted in a severly and negatively impacted economy for the south when with their liberal big government socialistic notions intervened and ruined once profitable textile business enterprises. The remnants of the grandeur that was once the south can be seen in the beautiful mansions, driveways lined with poplar trees bearing strange fruit. The dam*ned liberal northerers destroyed these successful business enterprises. It should make all true patriots sick to their stomachs.
Big government needs to be shrunk to a size so small it can be drowned in a bath tub, just consult Grover Nordquist on this. Liberals are bad for business, they should all shut up and allow the free market to reign.
they know who they are..LOL
Posted by l8c6 at 11:09 AM : Jul 19, 2007
-New york will be the new gost-cities we used to have after gold rush ended. NYC is too old in Infrastructure and Environment to clean and repair. Better take a relatively virgin/clean place such as in the Middle-East where industries have not been extensively installed. With the money moving East to Dubai, UAE, Israel and other cities in the Middle-East, combined with the huge debt contracted by Walking-Liar admin in the name of America, translated in the incapacity of gettig the funds for projects, well one should expect to see NO major work being started soon in NYC. Proof to that: what are we still waiting for the re-building of the Twin Towers?
Could not AGREE more...Both extremes, right and left,.. In Govt. are bad for business,.. I wish someone from one side or the other WOULD hurry up and Shrink big Govt.. the problem seems to be "political Will"..lets hope someone in the next Administration..forgets all past admin's
(Bush,Clinton,Bush,Reagan etc.etc.)Business as usual ***..And doing what needs to be done...w/ some semblance of "balance"..dare i say ?...Hoping for a successful out come to this Grand Experiment called ..United Stateds of America..(we are very young country still)..This political power struggle is only a small part of what is keeping the shrinking of Big Govt. from happening..
Posted by grazinggoat
Absolutely, it's a free global economy. It shows a lack of prudence to keep patching something old and antiquated unless done on a maintenance scale that insures continued adequate profitability.
Dubai is building a complete new infrastructure and should be a runner up for the world's next financial center.
As a manufacturing facility ages, it isn't upgraded, it's maintained until it's useful life ends when it produces a lack of sufficient return. The global economy must apply these same business principles in order to continue to gain capital.
This used to be an idea attributed to conservative Republicans, whatever happened to those people?
America really is... Living in foreign countries , growing up (as an American),..I found out what America is NOT...
I'd love to finally see what it really is--cuz' right now, I DON'T THINK it's lookin' as pretty as it should..Many will argue how to go about doing this
The current, and past, power structure in this country -has squashed any real progress/debate about how to truly go about doing this...But I feel we can Have tremendous progress in this KIND OF country while still maintaing a sense of Tradition/heritage..But until recently we've barely begun to scratch the surface..
The following story is about some losers that got what they deserved. The future needs to insure such tripe never claims entitlements in any future successful global economy.
The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers ( Oh blow it bleeding liberal c*rap). On that day, 20 innocent men, women and children were killed ( oh boo hoo) in the Ludlow Massacre. The coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
Upon striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The massacre occurred in a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strike breakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later investigations revealed that kerosine had intentionally been poured on the tents to set them ablaze. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so
the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.
Posted by BareEmpero
Never fear, it still is the goal. Insuring a free market and the privatization of capital will allow for greater special/private representation. The fact is however, someone will lead. There is no evidence that I can think of where there hasn't been some form of leadership whether it be concentrated amongst a few or more greatly spread amongst a larger common.
The problem with the latter though is that it gets in the way of the growth of concentrations of wealth that built the glory and grandeur one finds in the infrastructure of old Europe. The idiots who started this country didn't wanted to name the white house the presidents palace but fortunately those who proposed this name have finally found a voice and will implement their private capital into the new world order. It's about time the loser peasantry is taking a back seat, they've been the big government that has been on the backs of private industry.
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945, Italian fascist dictator)
"Modern fascism should be properly called corporatism, since it is the merger of state, military and corporate power."
The Present, and Future..will not be found in the past..--
When looking for Gains in Business,
..words to live by..
Innovation is what's needed.. The current power structure is very much AGAINST it(innovation)..
Innovation can sometime mean "change" or "New"..
and that usually translates in these people's minds to: "Someone else" getting rich/money/power
Status Quo has not worked in a long time..time for these people to pick up their ball and go home..it's time to let other people inthe game and play..or we can all "Play" together..
strange concept ?
The masses of demanding whining tripe, you can bet they were then too, are dust like their loser shacks built out of wood. Most humans are worthless and should be happy to get the free market compensation they receive.
When looking for Gains in Business,
..words to live by..
Posted by dodaz
So true, history has nothing to do with where we are now, we have nothing to learn from it. Progress starts from scratch. Today is the dawn of a new world order, forget you ever learned to tie your shoe laces.
Forgetting about the past,. and how we got here, is not what i'm talking about..
But using past mistakes, and trying to re-work them for future benfit..is what i find fault with..
Innovation starts here and now..
w/ past mistakes being a platform--we can jump off and learn from..propelling us into new, and better ideas for innovation..capece?
strange concept ?
Posted by dodaz
No way, what your saying is not a concern of those thinking someone else is getting rich. You liberal S*O*B. What you're suggesting is that those who have power and wealth should allow others to play? What a liberal slick move of deceit. That means letting loose of some of that power and wealth, how dare you. The petty despots of 19th century Germany were right on to ward off the liberals attempting to get in the way of their maintainance of entitled priviledge. Say no to the the death tax, just say no. The bleeding heart liberals want to take away your fortunes by demanding to participate and play in the game.
and that usually translates in these people's minds to: "Someone else" getting rich/money/power--Posted by dodaz
I get your scheme. Make out like those not wanting others to play the game are afraid someone else is getting rich from it.
All world leaders and those holding capital should not fall for this. This is a liberal trick. They are trying to make you think it's cool for others to play and participate but allowing such will result in you sharing some your priviledge...don't fall for this liberal tripe world leaders and capitalists. You must stand your ground and advance by conserving your position and staying the course.
What you miss(and this is INNOVATIVE)is that letting "others" in the game..
CAN and WILL make the current power structure RICHER !! yes i said RICHER !..innovation will need/use the current power structure to do this..the current power structure only need to get out of it's own way..in a way..the "peasants" will still be working for them, and they'll still be absurdly rich(and getting richer).. So not only will there be tons of NEW millionaires...there will be tons of new Billionaires..it will be a collaborative effort... this is not liberal/conservative etc.. it's practical and smart.. "power" will be a more collaborative effort..and everyone will get Richer...especially in this country w/ all it's natural resources.
P.S. seeing as an Independent , that anything "new" need not be Liberal or conservative..it's not socialism either ..just good Business..really.
No asbestos in the air? How long after did they take that reading, I wonder? There may have not been any in the air then because it had all settled to the ground with the rest of the debri. But it had been in the air and everybody was breathing it at that time.
Tell me something, why does EVERYTHING have to be about politcs, Bush etc....?
You people are OBSESSED!
And your paranoia is waaaaaay out of control!
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