Residents Displaced By Steam Pipe Explosion Demand Answers

CHELSEA, NY — Frustrated residents and business owners who were displaced after a steam pipe explosion sprayed their buildings with asbestos, slammed the city for sparse and misleading information on the recovery at a pair of Tuesday briefings.

The city has cleared 17 buildings to reopen and aims to certify another 17 for reentry by the end of Tuesday, but 12 buildings have interior asbestos contamination from the Fifth Avenue and 21st Street steam pipe rupture and will remain shuttered for several days, according to Joe Esposito, the commissioner of the city's Office of Emergency Management.

Many residents have struggled to learn the fate of their specific buildings since the cleanup began and were alarmed to hear days later that the interiors of some of their homes and businesses are contaminated with asbestos.

“Four days without letting residents know anything about their buildings seems unacceptable in a situation like this," said Blake Beckelman, 26, who lives in a 21st Street building adjacent to the steam pipe blast, at a packed Tuesday briefing for impacted residents.

“For four days I contacted 311, Department of Environmental Protection, council members offices, there was essentially no communication with what happened to my building," said Beckelman, who has bounced from friend's homes to hotels since Thursday. "And for that to go on for four days seems like an astounding irresponsibility on the part of our public servants.”

Over the weekend, the city and Con Edison worked around the clock to power wash building exteriors of the cancer-causing toxin. City inspectors are re-inspecting each facade and performing additional cleaning as needed.

Once the city's Department of Environmental Protection signs off on a building, additional health and environmental workers will conduct tests and visual checks of the interiors after management has given them access to the building. From there the city will either clear the building for reentry or clean it further.

The city can not offer a timeline for the lengthy process, which is moving slower than anticipated, an Office of Emergency Management Official said.

"Things are going a little slower than we’d like," said Joe Esposito. "It’s a painstaking process and we know it takes a lot of time, but we are focusing on doing it as safely as possible."

But the city is not checking individual apartments and businesses within the buildings and those that have been cleared could still have asbestos lining their air ducts. Air filtration systems could recirculate the asbestos into the air, so even if filtration systems are replaced that may not solve the problem.

The Department of Health recommends anyone who spots additional debris inside their buildings to hire an asbestos abatement company and submit a claim for the costs to Con Edison.

"We are checking common areas, individual spaces and the air in individual spaces needs to be addressed,” said Christopher D'Andrea, the assistant commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s bureau of environmental disease and prevention.

Residents who were recently allowed back into their homes were not impressed with how the city clears a building for reentry.

"I think the language between what is cleared and what is safe is very misleading," said Louisa Harpman, who on Monday was allowed back into her 20th Street building where she is in the process of purchasing an apartment. "It's very confusing and I think they are being very slippery in the language they are using."

The steam pipe explosion happened on the border of Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Councilwoman Carlina Rivera's districts, who echoed locals concerns about misinformation and the need for a firm timeline.

“I realize the anxiety that comes with a disaster," said Rivera. “There is a lot of misinformation out there and we realize that communication must be better."

Photos courtesy of Caroline Spivack/Patch