26 July 2007

the things you'd never hear about

You may recall me talking about an old friend of mine who works in a building right outside where that big steam explosion happened last week.

From July 19: OK, so as we've all heard by now an 83 year old steam pipe wrapped in asbestos exploded yesterday afternoon around 6pm on 41st between Lex and 3rd - which is a few blocks from where I work on Lex. I was already back in Bay Ridge(HOLLA!) when I walked in on 1010 WINS breaking the news; I leave 1010 WINS on all day for my dog so she can stay informed in between naps (Naturally, Gothamist has a pretty serious round-up of the events with some eyewitness accounts)

So I spoke to my friend late last night who works right on 41st and Lex and she was spooked. Apparently ish was pretty chaotic in that area; much
more chaotic than the local news is reporting. Naturally no one had any idea what the F was going on and in the never ending shadow of 9/11 everyone expects worse than the worst.

My girl said the rumbling in her building was so loud people thought the building was coming down; people were screaming and crying and
kicking off their shoes to run faster down the stairs. My friend ran down 20 some odd flights of a 50-story building; said handbags, eyeglasses and shoes were everywhere; people really thought this was "it"; that the building they were in was collapsing just like we've seen a million times from 9/11 footage; people running from smoke and falling buildings like a Godzilla movie come to life. F*cked. What a nightmare!
So her firm was just allowed back into the building yesterday. She said several people left early because they had panic attacks and in general everyone was just very uneasy, which I guess should be expected...

However, she said in the week and a half they've been barred from returning to their offices, their floor was completely looted; either by the buildings own security personnel or by the NYC Department of Health people because they were the only ones allowed access since the explosion.

She said everything was gone. Whatever was left behind in a panic on that day has vanished: iPods, cell phones, wallets, handbags, purses, laptops... everything. The place was cleaned out.

I can't say I'm shocked but how fucked up is that regardless?!

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