New York hit by gas smell, not dangerous

[spotbird]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A mysterious, powerful smell of natural gas throughout much of Manhattan forced evacuations of some buildings and a temporary suspension of a commuter train service on Monday morning as authorities scrambled to determine the source.

But there were no immediate reports of injuries and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the odor was not dangerous.

"It may just be an unpleasant smell, but at this point we do not know any more than that. The one thing we are confident about is, it is not dangerous," Bloomberg told a news conference.


http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2007-01-08T175532Z_01_N08359190_RTRUKOC_0_US-NEWYORK-GAS.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-domesticNews-2

[montanacowboy]

1. Did the Feds neglect to inform Mayor Stupid

that they are conducting some kind of test to see how things travel in the air? according to Con Edison there is NO, repeat NO gas leaks....

[stillcool]

2. no surprise...neither was the air quality after 9/11...

how will first responders respond?

[sweetpotato]

3. Not dangerous?

Ever since the 9-11/Wall Street/toxic air is really OK, I have a hard time trusting these officials when they say there is no danger.

[smirkymonkey]

22. God forbid business should be disrupted to make people safe.

Bloomberg is such a patronizing pig. He says they don't know anything about it, but it's not dangerous. How do they know it's not dangerous if they DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT???

[Penance]

25. They did take precautions

They evacuated several schools and shut down the PATH train coming from New Jersey for a while. I've also heard they shut down St. Vincents and Macy's for a while and people were leaving Rockefeller Center, but I can't confirm that. This isn't the first time there's been a large gas smell in NYC. Last year there was a similar incident with a large, unexplained gas smell. It turned out that a plant in Jersey accidentally released some of the chemical they add to gas to make it smell. The chemical is added because natural gas has no detectable odor. We've also had unexplained incidents where large areas of the city smelled like maple syrup.

Gotta love New York.

[Canuckistanian]

28. Funny, I heard Sean Hannity say the same thing

Yet another incident of me screaming at my car radio......

[unblock]

4. how can bloomie be confident it's not dangerous if he doesn't know what it is?

i think the stench is bloomie's bu**sh**

[T_i_B]

5. OK then...

who farted?

[LiberalEsto]

6. Now, I'm not saying anything,

but my brother lives just west of NYC, and he cooks one mean pot of sauerkraut.

[kestrel91316]

7. If it persists, or happens repeatedly, people will begin to ignore

the smell of gas (even if there is a real leak). Therein lies the real danger of this.

Could be that's the INTENT of this: to cry wolf and desensitize people to it.

"Oh, just ignore it. It ALWAYS smells like gas in NYC."

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. Was Limbaugh in NYC today? That could be the source.

[mvd]

9. I just hope it's..

not something that shows its effects later.

[aquart]

10. If it gives you a headache, is that a problem?

It was being discussed elsewhere and women were reporting headaches from it.

[demo dutch]

11. They wouldn't tell you if it was a little dangerous

[soothsayer]

12. Pre-earthquake outgassing of methane from the Hudson

submarine canyon? Let's see if good ol' NYC gets a rumbler...!

[smirkymonkey]

23. Can you explain more about that?

Apparently there is a fault at the points they are reporting that the gas leaks are strongest. It goes just below 14th Street (through Greenwich Village) and turns up through Chelsea and goes up the West side. You might be on to something.

[soothsayer]

32. Sometimes (say in CA) before a quake, the earth will release a

bunch of trapped methane. NY harbor is the start of the hudson submarine canyon (wikipedia has much to say about that canyon) which is an old 'ice age' underwater/underground canyon thought to be filled with lots and lots of methane. So....mebbe NYC's in for a quake?

[smirkymonkey]

33. Very interesting - they are blaming New Jersey, of course, but

the smell was noticed all along the West Side from the Village up to the Upper West Side, which borders the Hudson River, so this is a plausible theory. Have any so called "experts" said anything about this yet?

Apparently the "big one" is supposed to hit NYC sooner or later according to some seismologists.

[mainer]

24. Like the precursor to Egypt's plagues

History channel theorized that pre-seismic outgassing caused the Nile to turn red, killed the fish, caused a plague of frogs fleeing the deadly waters, and then gassed to death humans who slept in low-lying areas.

Hmmm... maybe the end-timers are right?

[pennylane100]

13. There was a discussion on The View today about it.

The panel wondered where the smell could be coming from and Rosie O'Donnell said she had an idea.

[rocktivity]

14. "It may just be an unpleasant smell, but at this point we do not know any more than that.

The one thing we are confident about is, it is not dangerous," Bloomberg told a news conference.

If he doesn't know what it is, how can he KNOW it's not dangerous? Nice epitaph, though.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Gormy Cuss]

15. Natural gas doesn't have an odor.

The odor is from an additive (mercaptan?) So the NYC odor may register as natural gas odor to people but that is not what they're smelling. Natural gas with the additive has a mildly sulfurous odor --- perhaps the odor is from a chemical plant in New Jersey or something.

[AngryAmish]

16. Exactly right

The rotten eggs smell comes from an additive. Someone probably spread some of the additive around as a joke.

[Zuiderelle]

17. Imagine the pandamonium if they said that they think it might be dangerous.

What gall to claim confidence that it's not.

[TroglodyteScholar]

20. Welcome to DU, PelosiFan...

:hi:

Stick around awhile...you might meet a couple more fans of Madame Speaker.

[Zuiderelle]

31. Thank you

I would hope there would be a few here. :hi:

[rainbow4321]

18. 63 Dead birds in Austin closes down part of the city

Not related (hopefully) but reading both articles makes one want to say "WTF is going on now?"

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5904817

Austin police have re-opened a 10-block stretch of Congress Avenue, hours after 63 dead birds were found in Downtown Austin.

A few of those birds were found alive and had awkward movements and the inability to fly. Authorities said Monday that the birds don't pose a threat to public health.


"At this time, based on that preliminary evidence, we do not feel that there's a threat to the public health, but we do want to take every precaution necessary to ensure the public's safety," said Dr. Adolfo Valadez with Austin-Travis County Health and Human Services.

They still don't know what killed the birds. However, one bird has been sent to a lab in Ames, Iowa, to be tested for avian flu. Another bird is being sent to College Station, Texas, to determine whether it might have been poisoned. That said, KXAN has been told that officials don't believe that a bird flu was the likely cause of this incident Monday morning.

[Exultant Democracy]

27. That is what I thought too. nt

[AnnieBW]

19. How Can They Tell?

Maybe the wind just shifted from the Jersey side of the river? :evilgrin:

[Catchawave]

21. I watched this coverage today....but

isn't it the Jersey side of I-95/Jersey Turnpike they were smelling? Probably waffed over to Manhattan with the storm today with the drizzle and Imus.

[annabanana]

26. Best guess so far:

NJ has a lot of chemical plants, a lot of places that deal in artificial flavors and scents... Natural gas is actually scentless... The smell we think of as "gas" is actually an additive added to natural gas so it can be detected, for safety's sake.

There may have been a leak of the scent that is added to gas. This would explain why none of the gas companies detected a change in levels, and none of the fire departments were able to detect an accumulation of gas in the air.

[Algorem]

29. military experiment.

[Algorem]

30. Abe Vigoda shouldn't eat Mexican.

[Canuckistanian]

34. Now, replace 'New York' with 'New Jersey'

And see if this rates a headline...

Man, I drove through Newark once and almost died.... and they say that's normal.