path train closed wnyc broke in said bloomberg to make radio address soon. now cnns covering it.
- bill 1-08-2007 6:33 pm [add a comment]

What would a gas smell have to do with the PATH? Only those rubbish cars use diesel.
- tom moody 1-08-2007 6:37 pm [add a comment]

10 A.M.
UPDATE: Maria Pignataro, spokesperson for the Jersey City mayor's office, claims the smell originated from the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan near West 4th and Bleecker. No other sources have confirmed this report.

UPDATE: Con Ed and PSE&G confirm that they have no gas leaks reported in their systems.

UPDATE: NY Press can confirm that despite reports to the contrary from Jersey City official Pignataro, there is no strong odor in the West 4th and Bleecker area.

Mayor Bloomberg is scheduled to hold a press conference addressing the mattter momentarily.

Posted by Editors at 10:33 AM
- bill 1-08-2007 6:43 pm [add a comment]

Natural gas or gasoline? (Obviously I'm not smelling it.)
- tom moody 1-08-2007 6:44 pm [add a comment]

natural. it came and went quickly. bloomberg speaking now. "dont know what it is but its not dangerous." right! like we can trust anyone anymore.
- bill 1-08-2007 6:48 pm [add a comment]

An odor noticed from Greenwich Village to Newark? And--The mayor said that "these things are normal, happen all the time." Wow.
- jimlouis 1-08-2007 9:14 pm [add a comment]

Suspicious device in port of Miami, suspicious odors NYC, suspicious dead birds in Austin TX. Probably nothing but...still weird.
- jimlouis 1-08-2007 10:55 pm [add a comment]

and a white vapor emitting from a truck in sugarland tx. nice way to start the week/newyear.
- bill 1-08-2007 11:24 pm [add a comment]

here they mention the infamous maple syrup smell well known to hoboken and jc residents. the scale of the smell and rapidness of its spread is weird. most annoying is the lack of accountability. (shrug)

Adding to the alarm was the strength and duration of the odor, which may have been aggravated by a weather phenomenon known as a temperature inversion. Inversions, which often occur when a warm front moves over a cooler, denser air mass, cause the temperature closer to the ground to be cooler and the air higher up to be warmer — a reversal of the usual pattern. Inversions can trap pollutants and odors, preventing them from being dispersed upward.

NEW YORK (AP) _ The gas-like odor that hung over Manhattan's streets was gone Tuesday, but city officials were still trying to pinpoint its source _ and eyeing New Jersey.

Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection, said Tuesday that his agency was pretty sure the source of the smell was along New Jersey's industrialized waterfront, just across the Hudson River from New York.

"The way we tracked the dispersion of the smell and the prevailing winds indicates that it came from New Jersey, somewhere near Secaucus," Sturcken said.

The strong odor, detectable from Manhattan's southern tip to well past Central Park, led to some precautionary evacuations, and about a dozen people were taken to hospitals complaining of difficulty breathing, Fire Department spokesman Tony Sclafani.

There was no indication that the air was unsafe, though, and no indication of terrorism, city and federal officials said.

"It may just be an unpleasant smell," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a midmorning news conference Monday.

Complaints about the odor also came from Bergen and Hudson counties in New Jersey, but no air sampling was done there because the state Department of Environmental Protection had no specific locations to test, spokeswoman Elaine Makatura said.

Sturcken said that the odor could have been caused by mercaptan, the chemical added to normally odorless natural gas to make it easily detectable, but he added, "Nothing has been confirmed."

"We're left with a mystery, although we know it's not harmful," he said.

swamp gas!

Charles Sturcken of the city's Department of Environmental Protection says the likely cause is swamp gas from the New Jersey Meadowlands in Secaucus.

How's that unexplained stinky blob off the NJ coast doing? Maybe it migrated.
- tom moody 1-09-2007 8:24 pm [add a comment]

any UFO sightings in the area lately?
- steve 1-09-2007 10:44 pm [add a comment]