N.Y. / Region At Least 3 Killed As Gas Explosion Hits East Harlem By MARC SANTORAMARCH 12, 2014 The call to Consolidated Edison came at 9:13 a.m. on Wednesday: The smell of gas, detectable the night before, had strengthened around two buildings by 116th Street and Park Avenue in East Harlem. Less than 20 minutes later, the buildings were gone, leveled by a tremendous explosion whose tremors could be felt more than a mile away. The blast, which city officials said was touched off by a gas leak, killed at least three people and wounded at least two dozen more, including two critically. Rescue workers continued to search the rubble from the buildings well into the night, hoping to find the nine occupants of the buildings still missing late Wednesday. The explosion blew out windows in surrounding buildings and sent debris crashing onto nearby streets. People were trapped in their cars, in the rubble and in neighboring apartments. Others rushed toward the towering plume of flames and smoke, making desperate rescue attempts. There was little warning, certainly not enough to have safely evacuated the area, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference, near where the buildings once stood at 1644 and 1646 Park Avenue. “This is a tragedy of the worst kind because there was no indication in time to save people,” he said, warning that the search “will take quite a bit of time.”The cause of the gas leak remained unclear on Wednesday night as a team from the National Transportation Safety Board, which oversees pipeline safety, arrived to help investigate. Jennifer Salas and her husband, Jordy Salas, lived at 1644 Park Avenue; she said on Wednesday that her husband and the couple’s dog were in their apartment at the time of the collapse, and were still missing. Through tears, Ms. Salas, who is pregnant, begged firefighters to find her husband. The couple were among several neighbors who said that they had detected a gaslike odor before, but that it seemed to worsen on Tuesday night. “Last night it smelled like gas, but then the smell vanished and we all went to sleep,” she said. Another couple, Shavonne Cano and her fiancé, Corey Louire, said they also smelled gas on Tuesday night, and slept with a window open. When the gas was still noticeable in the morning, they called Con Edison. Mr. Louire said he was told not to turn on a cellphone or anything else, and to leave the apartment and the building, at 1652 Park Avenue. He was in the lobby when he heard the explosion. Elizabeth Matthews, a spokeswoman for the utility, confirmed that a customer at 1652 Park Avenue called to report a heavy gas odor at 9:13 a.m. Two minutes later, two Con Ed crews were dispatched, and they arrived just after the explosion. The Fire Department said it received the first report of a fire at 9:31 a.m., and discovered on arriving two minutes later that the buildings had collapsed. There were a total of 15 apartments in the two buildings; one had a church on the ground floor, and the other had a piano store. The buildings were five stories and about 55 feet tall, according to Buildings Department records. The injured were taken to several area hospitals; most were treated and released. Officials said 13 people went to Harlem Hospital Center, including a 15-year-old boy in critical condition; 22 people at Mount Sinai Hospital, including a woman in critical condition with head trauma; and 18 at Metropolitan Hospital Center, all with minor injuries. City officials urged families trying to find loved ones to call 311. Many congregated at a center set up by the Red Cross at a nearby school, even as they made appeals on social media for information about the missing. About 250 firefighters from 44 units responded to the explosion. Heavy equipment was used to clear destroyed vehicles outside the buildings as firefighters started the painstaking task of searching the rubble brick by brick. By late afternoon, they could be seen sifting through the wreckage, passing buckets of debris hand to hand to clear it from the site. As night fell, there were still hot spots in the debris that limited rescue efforts. The two buildings were among the older in the area, also referred to as Spanish Harlem. But the neighborhood has changed over the years, with new low-rise buildings, retail centers and an influx of Chinese immigrants altering the character of the area. Later in the day, some corners of the neighborhood had returned to normal: families walking dogs; music from a passing car or, occasionally, a passer-by; young professionals in hospital scrubs, clutching cups of coffee from the bodegas near the elevated Park Avenue train tracks. But signs of the trauma persisted. Many pedestrians wore surgical masks, a reminder of the panicked scene earlier, when people ran about the area, unsure what was happening as the thick gray smoke blanketed the neighborhood. As his own building on Lexington Avenue rumbled, Michael Lewis, 48, raced to the scene, arriving before most emergency personnel. He said he and a small group of neighbors surrounded a van, partly submerged by the rubble, and could see four people trapped inside. “I heard some moans and groans,” he said. As the group tore through the wreckage, beside a mountain of debris on the sidewalk, emergency responders arrived and pulled Mr. Lewis and the others away. “I’m a New Yorker,” Mr. Lewis said. “You’ve got to help the people.” David Antar, the owner of a deli on East 119th Street, felt his building shake around 9:30 a.m. He said he ran toward the scene, joined by dozens of bystanders, as smoke filled the sky. Flames shot out of the buildings, and cars that were stopped at a traffic light were covered in debris. “The whole building is in the middle of the street,” Mr. Antar said. Records from the Buildings Department indicate that the rear exterior of 1646 Park Avenue had been found in 2008 to have “several vertical cracks, which is hazardous for the safety of the structure.” The records do not indicate that the hazard was ever fixed. Con Ed officials said there was a report of gas odor at 1644 Park Avenue on May 17, 2013, and it was determined to be a small leak in customer piping, which was fixed. The utility routinely inspects pipeline infrastructure across the city — some of which is 127 years old — and officials said the block where the explosion took place was examined on Feb. 28. No problems were reported. A sinkhole caused by a water main break in front of the buildings was complicating rescue efforts and was being looked at as a possible factor in the explosion. Investigators were examining whether the break occurred before the explosion, and if so, whether a gush of water may have led to the rupturing of the gas line. The power of the blast tossed debris far and wide, including onto nearby tracks used by the Metro-North Railroad. The railroad’s service in and out of Grand Central Terminal was suspended and not fully restored until late afternoon. A southbound Metro-North train passed by 116th Street just seconds before the explosion. Passengers said that the train shook violently, and that the impact felt as if the last car had been hit broadside by something large. Eusebio Perez, 48, a piano technician who had lived on the top floor of 1646 Park Avenue for 10 years, said that when he left for work on Wednesday morning, his home was in one piece. He rushed home to find only devastation. “Oh, my God. There’s nothing left,” he said. “A pile of bricks. Nothing’s there.” A version of this article appears in print on March 13, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: At Least 3 Killed As Gas Explosion Hits East Harlem . Order Reprints|Todays Paper|Subscribe
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 02:51:33 +0000
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