Mayhem in Midtown

I’ve often wondered how I would react in an emergency. I’ve watched people on the news in all kinds of catastrophes around the world – people crying, panicking or rushing to help out. What would happen to me if faced with possible disaster? Now I know. My tongue goes numb.

I heard the explosion at 6pm yesterday. Like many people, I thought it was thunder. Thunder had woken me up that morning and it had been rumbling off and on all day, so I didn’t think much of the noise. Then the sirens started, and I thought to myself – it’s kinda freaky working right in midtown Manhattan, next to Grand Central. Should anything happen to New York, I’m really right in the middle of it all. More and more sirens sounded underneath my window, but still I continued to work – after all, I had a deadline to meet. It wasn’t until the Creative Director came running into my office screaming, “Something happened to our building. Everyone get out. Get out NOW!”

That’s when my tongue went numb.

People started running through the halls towards the stairs. I got up and followed. Did I stop to grab my wallet? No. Did I take my house keys? No. Did I bring my phone, my purse, my camera. No. I grabbed the item closest to me – my water bottle. I may have had no phone to call my family, no money to get home, no keys to get inside, but I was not going to go thirsty dammit! The truth is, I mostly figured that this was a false alarm. That we’d walk down 16 flights of stairs, realized that it was nothing and come back up, and did I really want to lug my bag (which also contained my laptop and my gym clothes) all that way? No. Not really.

But once I reached the stairs and I saw the traffic jam of business people racing and pushing down the stairwell, desperate to get out of the building, I realized that I really should have brought my bag. There was no going back for it now.

What were we to think? No one knew what was going on. We could still hear the roar outside, still hear the sirens. Most of these people had lived through 9/11. They knew the kind of disaster that could happen in New York. So why wouldn’t they be scared? Why wouldn’t they assume that the building could come crashing down over our heads at any minute?

The stairwell traffic jam got worse and worse as we descended. Occupants of each of the 16 floors were filing into the stairs. There’s got to be a better emergency procedure, I thought to myself. But I said nothing, quietly taking small sips from my water bottle. Good thing I had that water. If anyone was going to be dehydrated, it sure as hell wouldn’t be me.

I wasn’t expecting the scene outside when we finally reached the exit on 41st street. It was way worse than I was imagining. The first thing I saw was people running, while others stood taking pictures with there cameras and phones. What were they all scared of? I walked into the street and looked to my right. What was it? It was giant, that I could tell. It had an orangish, grayish hue. It was terrifying. Was it a fire? Was it a building that had exploded? Was it a bomb?



It was steam. Steam sounds so innocuous. Vaporized water, how harmful can that be? But when it’s shooting out of the ground to form a cloud as thick as an NY city block and higher than the surrounding skyscrapers, it can be pretty frightening. Especially when it’s about 30 feet from where you’re standing.



Perhaps I’ve seen too many end-of-the-world movies. Specifically, those blockbusters like Independence Day and Deep Impact, where people run through the streets with a title wave or fireball close at their heels, cars flying and trees shooting ten feet in the air. That’s what it felt like. People were running away from the billowing cloud, women ditched their high heels and bolted. Everyone had their cell phones glued to their ears and people were crying. I didn’t know what to do. I wish I had my camera. Or my phone. Or maybe my wallet or my house keys. Or a friend. Or any idea what the hell was going on. But I didn’t have any of those things, so I ran. I ran towards the river because that felt like the safest place to go.



After a few blocks, I deduced that the billowing steam cloud was not going to chase me down. But still, I didn’t know what was in that cloud – poisonous gases? Asbestos? Aliens? (Incidentally, they still don’t know what was in that cloud and I could be inhaling noxious chemicals as I write.) And I was now faced with another disaster – I was stranded in midtown with nothing but the clothes on my back and a bottle of water. So I continued to the river to contemplate my choices. My first goal was to get off this island of disaster. I wanted to go home to Brooklyn. It’s a long way to the Brooklyn Bridge from 41st street, plus I was wearing heels. I thought about the iPod and running shoes upstairs in my bag.

I sat down on a bench by the river and realized that I had not eaten lunch and was actually quite hungry. I was contemplating how I would go about acquiring food without money (could I beg for food? Did I know anyone in the restaurant industry that would give me food?), when the Water Taxi pulled up. I managed to convince the driver to let me on with no money, and got a boat ride over to DUMBO. At this point, I still had no phone or means of communication and was not entirely convinced that the world was not falling apart. But it was sunset and the city looked beautiful from the East River, even with the cloud of steam rising above the midtown skyscrapers. I was thankful to be safe. Thankful that my tiny taste of what September 11th must have been like turned out to be nothing in comparison.



When I got back to Brooklyn, I headed to my nearest friends’ house. But not before accidentally walking through a movie shoot and practically tripping over Ben Kingsley. Could my afternoon get any more surreal? Luckily Julie and Jeff were there to welcome me in, let me use their phone and computer and give me beer. That’s when I finally found out what had actually happened in midtown – a steam pipe exploded underneath the ground near Lexington and 41st (one block from my building). One person died and more than 30 were hurt.



Today, the front pages of the newspapers had no shortage of dramatic headlines: “The ground opened up!” “Mayhem in Midtown!” “Massive explosion rocks Manhattan.” I used to think that the news sensationalized stories. But in this case, that was exactly how it felt.

Here is the coverage in the NY Times (where I got all the photos from).