Suitably Flip

Gotham Has Gas

I've been hearing loud sirens this morning (more so than usual), but didn't put 2 and 2 together until Hot Air (appropriately enough) did it for me.

The cable news networks are all covering it so I guess I need to toss up a post. There’s a major gas leak somewhere in Manhattan, the smell is detectable from the southern tip of the island to midtown and across the river in Jersey City. Some office buildings are being evacuated and 911 is being inundated. On Fox, E.D. Hill says the smell is “overwhelming” in some parts of their offices.

No sign of terrorism, etc etc.  Bloomberg’s holding a news conference soon; you can watch live over the web here.

The fire department apparently started getting calls around 9:00 this morning.  At East 21st and Park (just a few blocks from Chelsea, where the smell may be emanating from), I can report no detectable smell.  Maybe I'll go have a sniff outside.

Something very similar happened in Staten Island back in August, leading to several people checking into the hospital for headaches and nausea.

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Update:  From Bloomberg's news conference: "The one thing we are confident of is that it is not dangerous."  Sensors do not show a high enough concentration of natural gas to be dangerous and Con Ed does not show a drop in pressure that would indicate a large gas leak.  That's good news, in that we don't appear to have a natural gas cloud hovering over the city.

The bad (or at least weird) news (which is the same as the good news) is that the apparent lack of a sizeable leak means the smell could have nothing to do with natural gas.  So the question remains: what is it?

Update:  The first hospitalizations are being reported, oddly enough in New Jersey, not New York (the oddity being that winds are out of the west today, so one might expect Manhattan, or even Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx to be getting the harsher whiff).  Maybe it was the Garden State who dealt it after all.

New York FOX affiliate WNYW-TV reported that New Jersey's PSE&G is investigating whether the smell might have originated with a gas leak in Jersey City, N.J.

If the complaints are similar to the ones following the August incident, they're the result of smelling something foul for a while (e.g. headaches, nasuea), not of inhaling something dangerous.

The series of wailing sirens from various directions has returned to a nearly constant chorus.

Elsewhere:  Urban Elephants, Sister Toldjah, Late Final
Previously:  Ooh Ooh, That Smell

Comments

Gotham Has Gas

I've been hearing loud sirens this morning (more so than usual), but didn't put 2 and 2 together until Hot Air (appropriately enough) did it for me.

The cable news networks are all covering it so I guess I need to toss up a post. There’s a major gas leak somewhere in Manhattan, the smell is detectable from the southern tip of the island to midtown and across the river in Jersey City. Some office buildings are being evacuated and 911 is being inundated. On Fox, E.D. Hill says the smell is “overwhelming” in some parts of their offices.

No sign of terrorism, etc etc.  Bloomberg’s holding a news conference soon; you can watch live over the web here.

The fire department apparently started getting calls around 9:00 this morning.  At East 21st and Park (just a few blocks from Chelsea, where the smell may be emanating from), I can report no detectable smell.  Maybe I'll go have a sniff outside.

Something very similar happened in Staten Island back in August, leading to several people checking into the hospital for headaches and nausea.

---

Update:  From Bloomberg's news conference: "The one thing we are confident of is that it is not dangerous."  Sensors do not show a high enough concentration of natural gas to be dangerous and Con Ed does not show a drop in pressure that would indicate a large gas leak.  That's good news, in that we don't appear to have a natural gas cloud hovering over the city.

The bad (or at least weird) news (which is the same as the good news) is that the apparent lack of a sizeable leak means the smell could have nothing to do with natural gas.  So the question remains: what is it?

Update:  The first hospitalizations are being reported, oddly enough in New Jersey, not New York (the oddity being that winds are out of the west today, so one might expect Manhattan, or even Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx to be getting the harsher whiff).  Maybe it was the Garden State who dealt it after all.

New York FOX affiliate WNYW-TV reported that New Jersey's PSE&G is investigating whether the smell might have originated with a gas leak in Jersey City, N.J.

If the complaints are similar to the ones following the August incident, they're the result of smelling something foul for a while (e.g. headaches, nasuea), not of inhaling something dangerous.

The series of wailing sirens from various directions has returned to a nearly constant chorus.

Elsewhere:  Urban Elephants, Sister Toldjah, Late Final
Previously:  Ooh Ooh, That Smell