July 18, 2007

News

Tonight's breaking New York news: a steam pipe exploded in Midtown Manhattan at 41st and Lex. I'm okay and so is Craig. I hope none of my friends were in Midtown when this happened. From the sounds of things at this hour of the evening, so far no fatalities have been reported, only injuries. I must have just been climbing out of the subway station at 86th when this happened, because aside from stopping at Key Food for fresh fruit, juice and water, I came straight home. I rarely turn on the news immediately after work, too. But for some reason, maybe to sit and feel informed for a few minutes, I turned it on and this story was unfolding. Thousands of pounds of steam blew out of the ruptured pipe, spraying huge rocks of Lex Avenue into the sky, plus mud and whatever else. For those unfamiliar with New York City, Midtown contains some of the busiest most highly-trafficked intersections in Manhattan. Grand Central Station is located at 42nd and Lex, and serves as a central hub for many subway trains as well as the Metro North Railroad. Not to mention the fact that this happened right at the heaviest commuting time of the day next to morning. This happened tonight after an extremely severe thunderstorm this morning which shut down many subway tunnels due to heavy flooding. I'm not a journalist, so I don't want to go on and on with details, but I am definitely amazed at the strength of New York when something like this happens. New Yorkers are resilient and even though this will cause massive interruption in hundreds of thousands of lives tonight through however long it takes Con Edison to research and repair the steam pipe, New Yorkers will find their ways home tonight and will wake up tomorrow to throw themselves back into yet another day. Now they're reporting that microscopic asbestos likely spewed out with the steam. This is all very emotional to me given how much I love my City, and how easily Craig or I or both of us could have been standing at that very intersection at the time of this explosion. I'm going to keep watching the news to see how this might affect us tomorrow morning. Tonight, the 4, 5 and 6 lines are suspended (there's a Yankee game tonight, too! How terrible!) and who knows if they will run tomorrow morning through Grand Central? (insert: my friend Aubree just text-messaged me, "Did you two make it home ok? Crazy day today, what with flooding and exploding streets." While this isn't funny, that comment from her did make me smile.*One time a long time ago, my friend said, "You can't call yourself a New Yorker until you've lived there during something dramatic." I think this counts.*This is the last post for me until post-Paul and Angie, since we're so completely busy these next six days. Speaking of which, I can't imagine what is running through their minds right now as they get ready to head to Sky Harbor to fly out of Phoenix and are possibly catching wind of this breaking news - exploding streets in Manhattan??? Poor those two! And poor City while it launches into immediate recovery from such an incident. I hope no fatalities are uncovered. It would be a minor miracle if that were to be the case, but a good one for the City of New York, indeed.

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