As soon as I stepped out of my building, I could immediately see and smell it: the smoke residue from the gas explosion in East Harlem, 116th St. and Park avenue to be exact. The explosion occurred during Wednesday’s morning commute to work and school, at around 9:30am. As a result, two buildings, 1644 and 1646 Park Avenue, right on 116th Street. The ill-fated buildings, who also housed a Spanish church and a piano store, were completely destroyed, with a neighboring third building also being badly damaged.
An image of the buildings that were known as 1644 and 1646 Park avenue, before the explosion:
However, no one was safe from the chaotic aftermath. Traffic was diverted to other streets so as not to interfere with the police and firefighter’s investigations. This meant that a lot of foot traffic was eliminated, making restaurants and stores look like small ghost towns, something entirely different since many of these places were used to numerous customers.
Many of the first-eye witnesses to this disaster quickly took to social media to report what had happened.
!["On my way [on my way] to the train to go to work & all of a sudden we heard a big explosion. I started tearing & temblando [shaking] that loud ass boom scared me." -Yeni Lee](https://lauraguerrero.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/1184821_10201786666056136_167183152_n.jpg?w=687&h=687)
“On my way [on my way] to the train to go to work & all of a sudden we heard a big explosion. I started tearing & temblando [shaking] that loud ass boom scared me.”
-Yeni Lee
One of the popular trends on Instagram was #eastharlemexplosion, where many users posted videos and images of the aftermath to the explosion.
http://instagram.com/p/ldPtRAg9A_/
http://instagram.com/p/ldOm61g9PK/
http://instagram.com/p/lccTJyg9ER/
One Twitter user eerily compared the tragedy with 9/11:
Some quickly called their loved ones to make sure they were all right.
As day turned into night, and later into morning again, many parents and children walked to school and work with masks covering their faces. Some people just covered their mouths with their scarves or hands, afraid of the air contamination that surrounded them. It’s also been reported that many residents have gone into panic mode, depleting stores of their face mask stock.. As a safety precaution, the New york City Department of Health has urged East Harlem residents to keep windows shut and if possible, to stay indoors.
Seven people have been confirmed dead: three after the explosion, one in the late evening, and three others early Thursday morning. Unfortunately, many are still unaccounted for. The various victims were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, Metropolitan Hospital, and Harlem Hospital. Most victims suffered minor injuries, and were discharged fairly quickly, but one unidentified 15-year-old boy is still in critical but stable condition in Harlem Hospital.
Three of the confirmed dead include a Hunter College peace office (Griselde Camacho), a dental assistant (Carmen Tanco), and 21-year-old Rosaura Hernandez. Even in all of this grief, there is a small sliver of happiness when one survivor recounted how he was able to survive the building’s collapse thanks to being “cocooned by pianos.”
For the many residents who found themselves homeless because of this tragedy, many were directed to P.S. 57 in 115th street between 3rd and Lexington Ave., which served as a makeshift Red Cross emergency shelter.
This morning, the NYPD announced that the Red Cross shelter would be moving to 175 E. 125th Street.
Service on the Metro-North train has been reinstated, after no trains were going into or out of the city yesterday. Because the accident occurred on Park avenue, it affected the overhead railroad.
A lot of images keep pouring into Instagram and Twitter, showing everyone the aftermath images, as well as live updates on the search and rescue progress:
http://instagram.com/p/lfGV4XHLBb/
Daily News’ front page this morning:
Many of the buildings in the neighborhood are old, so to some extent it is possible for this to happen. However, there are safety measure in place which require agencies, such as Con Ed and the Department of Housing, to check buildings and make sure they are up-to-date with safety regulations, giving no possible causes for tragedies like yesterday’s. So far, the NTSB [National Safety Transportation Board], as well as the NYPD and the FDNY, will investigate what caused the tragedy to see who and what was the cause.
Laura Guerrero 