With the fatal gas leak which claimed a woman's life when her house exploded, City Council Eric Gioia called for Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke to step down, "Homes and streets should not be exploding - period. Across the five boroughs New Yorkers are left to wonder, 'Who's next?'... How many pepole have to lose their life before Con Edison changes their procedures?"
According to the NY Times, Con Ed says its workers were minutes away from alerting Ghanwatti Boobram to check the home for gas levels when her home on 260th Street in Queens' Floral Park neighborhood exploded. Con Ed had been on the scene for about 90 minutes and knew about high gas levels for a half hour, but did not evacuate residents. Con Ed VP of gas engineering David Davidowitz said workers "did what they were supposed to do" by starting door-to-door inspections—"They could have been walking into the building when it happened." The Times adds that he also suggested that if Boobram had been the one to call about the gas smell (neighbors did), "her home would have been inspected sooner and she would have been evacuated, Mr. Davidowitz said."
Mayor Bloomberg is also standing behind Con Ed so far; the Daily News reports he said, "Jumping to any conclusion - it may be just one of those things, an accident, that happens." Keep in mind that during day 6 of the 2006 Queens blackout, Bloomberg said of Con Ed CEO Burke, "I think Kevin Burke deserves a thanks from this city. He's worked as hard as he can every single day since then, as has everybody at Con Ed," only for it to turn out that Con Ed's failure to maintain its system caused the blackout.
