"Three days since an underground steam pipe burst in Manhattan’s Flatiron district, spewing asbestos-laced muck across several blocks, many residents were still barred from their homes on Sunday, coping not only with sudden homelessness, but fear about what the exposure could do to their health.
At an impromptu information center set up by the city inside a public school, bewildered residents whose homes were still cordoned off behind police tape and hazmat signs arrived throughout the day, seeking answers. Inside, a phalanx of emergency service workers doled out information and fielded a steady stream of queries from frightened New Yorkers.
Thursday’s blast resulted in the evacuation of more than 500 people from 45 buildings, but just a handful of minor injuries. And yet there was an undercurrent of deep anxiety among those whose lives were caught up in the path of the explosion, many of whom showed up at the information center set up at the Clinton School on East 15th Street. Although experts say the true risk from asbestos is from prolonged exposure over time, not a lone incident, many were anxious about their health. Others were still displaced, living out of suitcases and on friends’ couches; they wanted to know when they might go home."
Mariana Alfaro and Sarah Maslin Nir report for the New York Times July 22, 2018.
Advertisement 
