NYC Steam Pipe Explosion

An e-mail from someone at the site...




Hi-



I have received a lot of calls and messages from everyone so I wanted to give you guys an update...........



A little before 6 p.m. last night I was sitting at my desk and all of a sudden I heard a terribly loud rumble that kept going and going. As I looked around the room everyone was under their desks clinging to them as our building was shaking (It was shaking so hard I was grabbling the pole on my desk as hard as I could.)

As the noise got louder a guy looked out his window, jumped on his desk and yelled RRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!!!


We all thought it was a plane as most people on my floor were here for September 11th and the explosion (at which we didn't know at the time) sounded like a plane engine.


I remember sprinting to the door grabbing the hand of a coworker and heading for the stairs.....I work on the 31st floor of the 77 story Chrysler Building so it was a VERY long way down. The whole time the stairs were shaking and everyone thought we had been hit by a plane. On the way down, my whole life flashed in front of me and I just kept praying to God and asking to see my family even if it were for just one last time.

As we got to the first floor.......I began to see outside which was totally black with debris flying everywhere, and September 11th kept flashing through my head. Everyone kept saying "Run, run, as fast as you can away from Lexington Avenue."


I ran about 10 blocks away from the building where I could begin to see without all of the smoke. In my mind, I kept thinking..........."Am I far enough away, what if the buildings start collapsing, what if something else hits......am I safe?"


As I walked another couple of blocks, my legs began to give in and I knew I couldn't walk much further. I ran into a cleaners and begged to use their phone to call my family. I knew I needed to call my mom and matt atleast so they would be able to spread the word to everyone that I was ok. (I feared it was another Sept. 11 and I knew in 2001 people didn't hear from their families for days so I wanted everyone to know I was ok if i didn't get to talk to them for a while.)


I will back up a bit, .......the coworkers hand that I grabbed was a friend of mine named Brad. He knew that I had Lupus and that it would be difficult for me to make it down the stairs. He stayed with me the whole way down, saying...."We will make it out of this alive, I'm not leaving you here"........He came with me to the cleaners, paid them $1 to let me call my family and he went next door to buy me a bottle of water because he said I was bright red and not breathing well at all and he was scared. I will never forget Brad and the way he thought at the time he was putting his life on the line to make sure I made it out ok. I always knew that God put special people in our lives for a reason and Brad is for sure one of those.


As I set down, my adrenaline began to slow down and I could feel a lot of pain in my feet. I looked down at my feet and began to panic. I must have lost my shoes somewhere in the bulding because I was barefoot with blisters and cuts on my feet. (I have now found out that the blisters were from burns.......the ground was so hot it literally burned my feet.)


I am sure I forgot some things but I wanted you guys to have an idea of what happened.


As you look at the first picture, my building is the tall one on the right (The Chrysler Bulding) and on the left is the Empire State Building. The explosion happened right outside the door to the Chrysler so that is why our building was shaking and I ran immediatley into smoke as I exited the building. As you look at these pictures, you can't tell in most of them, but my building is on the right, with Grand Central Station on the left. (Mom and Christen you guys might be able to tell since you have been to my office before.)


I would just ask all of you to say a prayer for the woman killed yesterday and the 20+ people with severe burns. (The steam that hit a lot of people was over 400 degrees).

I hope this helps you guys understand everything, I am glad to be ok........I still have a whole life to live ahead of me!


You can see the pictures below.