Five people incurred minor injuries, according to FDNY officials, after a major emergency services response to a gas rupture was witnessed by residents at 379 Bedford Park Boulevard between Decatur Avenue and Webster Avenue in Bedford Park on Sunday, Sept. 22. Some gas outages are ongoing as a result and Con Ed said they were and will continue to work to restore service to the affected residents and businesses throughout Sunday, overnight on Sunday, and into Monday.

 

On Monday evening, one affected resident on 400 East Mosholu Parkway South said, “Con Ed just came to lock all our meters. They will be back tomorrow [Tuesday] to turn on each unit for gas.”

 

Regarding the gas incident, an FDNY spokesperson said they received a call a 9.40 a.m. on Sunday morning for a report of a “gas main rupture/explosion.” Con Edison was also seen at the site of the rupture on Sunday morning, assessing the situation.

FDNY said the 2-alarm incident drew 25 units and 106 fire and EMS personnel to the scene, with sections of Decatur Avenue, Webster Avenue, Marion Avenue, Bainbridge Avenue and East 201st Street all blocked off around Bedford Park Boulevard. Parts of the Grand Concourse had already been sectioned off due to the Bronx 10-mile race which took place on Sunday morning.

 

Odor of gas and fumes could be smelled in the area surrounding the site of the incident. At 11.10 a.m. on Sunday morning, FDNY officials said, “Hand lines precautionarily stretched and standing by.” They added, “Evacuations of surrounding addresses. No injuries reported at this time.”

The injury count was later updated at 7.36 p.m. to five (all minor). Two people refused medical attention and three were transported to Montefiore Medical Center in Norwood. FDNY officials later said that valves were shut down, the gas was dissipating, and NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) was on scene. They said the incident was brought under control at 12.55 p.m. and FDNY units remained at the scene.

 

When Norwood News reached out to Con Edison for more information on the incident, Philip O’ Brien, representing the company, said in part that following calls placed with the FDNY for reports of gas odors in the area, Con Edison crews were dispatched to make the area safe and to investigate the incident. He said that the FDNY reported a gas valve in the street at 379 Bedford Park Boulevard had ruptured. “No explosion – gas main shut off,” he said. “About 38 customers without gas service.”

O’Brien said that Con Edison crews remain on scene making repairs with the aim of restoring service to customers tonight and into Monday. “Work had been going on at that location for a few weeks, prepping to replace the main line with a new, more efficient piping,” he said. “It’s all part of infrastructure improvements to the area.”

 

O’Brien provided a further update at 9.51 p.m. on Sunday, saying, “We restored one apartment building and the NYBG. Still several more to restore. Work will continue tonight and tomorrow. It’s more complicated to restore gas service. When electricity goes out, once the problem is fixed, it’s a switch and lights come back on. With gas, we are required to do safety checks in each apartment in each building and that takes time.”

We also contacted the Red Cross to ask about any displaced residents. A representative from the Red Cross later replied, saying, “Our Disaster Action Team was on scene earlier, but residents are being allowed to reoccupy their apartments.”

 

John Infante, the superintendent of nearby 2870 Marion Avenue, told Norwood News that Con Ed had been working in the area for about six months. “Everytime that we think they’re through with it, they come and break again. Con Ed tells the crew to break again because of this and that, and they forgot something.” Infante alleged he knew the crew working on the repiping and alleged they shared some information about the project with him.

 

“That little corner there, this section, there were so many pipes and things going through that it has to be done by hand,” Infante said. “So, only that crew.. there’s two crews there…. they do it. They break it by hand and they get 8 feet down, and they replace pipes because there’s too many things going on, so you have electrical, you have gas, you have all kinds of things, so obviously, when they opened that up, they probably capped it up and something was loose ’cause that’s a 16-inch pipe that got replaced with PVC, so you know how much gas…? By the grace of God, this place didn’t blow up. Right there in front of the Church [St. Mary’s Orthodox Church of India] is where the problem is.”

“God was with us,” Infante said. “They are shutting off now. It doesn’t smell as bad. Looks like now, everything is shut off. People are going to have to cook with hot plates.” Norwood News contacted Con Ed for further comment on Infante’s remarks. A spokesperson responded saying he would not comment on what another person claimed to know about what Con Ed described as “this complicated work.” The spokesperson added, “Con Edison has been working in the neighborhood for several weeks replacing main gas lines with new, more efficient piping. It’s all part of infrastructure improvements.”

 

We also spoke to Mario, the owner of Bedford Pizza on East Bedford Park Boulevard, who said, “It blew up; the damn thing blew up and they’ve been working on it for the last four years.” Norwood News mentioned we had seen Con Ed working on the block for the last two weeks. “They’ve been working for the last four years, man,” Mario said. “It’s been on and off, you know?” He then alleged Con Ed said they had a leak and other delays with the work. “Now, they changed the new pipe. They changed the pipe, but someone screwed up. The pipe blew up. I’ve got the video here.”

 

We asked if the work had been carried out by Con Edison or a contractor. “I believe it’s Con Edison, yes, of course. Con Edison inspected it and closed it (the street). The city inspects it also. Someone screwed up, I don’t know who exactly.” Norwood News again asked if he knew if Con Ed had hired a contractor in relation to the work. “Yeah, they’ve got contractors on the side, yeah, they have contractors,” Mario said.

Asked what exactly had happened, Mario said, “I wasn’t here. We opened at three o’clock because they have the whole neighborhood locked down but what happened was people were walking by and business as usual, and all of a sudden the thing just blows up, blew up the manhole cover, and gas started shooting up for hours because they didn’t know where to shut it off.”

 

Norwood News asked if there was any damage to the pizza business. “No, we didn’t have any damage, but a lot of dirt and debris that came in, all over,” Mario said. “It’s cleaned up now, but I’ve got pictures of all that stuff. I’ve got pictures of the hole where the pipes are all separated, you know, when it blew up. Sh*t happens but thank God we’re alive.”

 

We spoke to a senior who lived on Bedford Park Boulevard opposite the Academy of Mt. Saint Ursula School, who said he heard a boom sound at around 7.45 a.m. One other young man said he heard from other people that there was an explosion, but didn’t hear it, himself. We asked if he knew what time and he said they said either in the early hours of Sunday morning or later on Sunday morning.

Two women standing on Bedford Park Boulevard also opposite the Academy of Mt. Saint Ursula School said they didn’t hear an explosion but they heard a lot of noise, like something falling, and they smelled the gas from early in the morning. “We hope it’s going to be okay in our building [in terms of gas safety],” they said.

 

Later, we spoke with the superintendent of a nearby building to the gas rupture site who arrived at the scene a bit later on the morning of the incident and asked him if he could tell us what happened. “I have call from some my tenants,” Haki Pukaj said. “He told me, ‘Oh, something happened, some gas in the building, shaking.’ Then I was scared that something happened in the building.”

 

Referring to the nearby gas rupture site, Pukaj continued, “But thanks God, it was over there.” We asked if his building had been shaking. “He’s saying like that,” the super said of his tenant. “But I don’t know who was here to see, but everybody gets scared, you know, when you see that, but thanks God, it’s not bad.”

We asked if Con Edison checked his building. “Not yet, because everybody is there [at the gas rupture site],” he said. “I don’t see nobody come yet this side, because those two [buildings] is the first. Yeah, but let’s see.”

 

Another source informed Norwood News that a resident’s cat was still inside the building where the gas rupture happened and that the cat’s owner was not allowed go back inside.

 

Around Decatur Avenue, one man was seen smoking as gas could still be smelled in the area. Someone yelled at him, “Yo! Why are you smoking here?” The man immediately flicked the cigarette onto the street but did not extinguish it. Some residents were seen wearing masks while others held their clothes up to their mouths to avoid inhaling the gas. Another resident elsewhere close to the site was also witnessed smoking.

On Bedford Park Boulevard and Webster Avenue, firefighters were seen using pickaxes to tear down the temporary green barricade around the “old” Cherry Orchard supermarket parking lot on the corner. It was not immediately clear why. We’ve asked the FDNY for more information. We did not receive an immediate response.

 

We also spoke to a lady called Maibelys who said she was in the process of moving into a new building at 2837 Decatur Avenue [“opposite a building for like the elderly”] close to where the gas rupture occurred and as a result of the incident, had to park three blocks away and walk over and back to her car and try to carry some of her things to her new place.

 

Asked if she had seen what happened, Maibelys said, “We honestly don’t know. Like, we just moved in that building. You see us with all, like, our packaging and stuff so, we’re still moving in.” Of the building where the gas rupture occurred, she said, “I don’t think it’s mine.” She added that she heard the incident had affected multiple buildings. Asked if she heard an explosion occur, she said, “No, we literally just came from our other apartment so we’re, like, still moving our stuff in.”

Asked how she felt experiencing a gas rupture so close to her new place, she said, “I mean, I think things happen. At least, they have it under control. I guess it’s been going on for like an hour since like 9 a.m. So, I guess we’ll just wait it out and see what happens, right, so that we can eventually get inside.”

 

Asked if it gave her any comfort knowing that at least Con Ed will presumably be checking the gas piping in the area in light of the rupture, she sad, “Yeah, right, at least they’re doing that. Yeah, I was here yesterday and everything was pretty good yesterday. I’m not sure why that happened.”

 

Safwan, a local employee who had been working in the area when the rupture occurred and who called 911, shared the following videos with us which show the immediate aftermath of the rupture. Click here and here to view them.

In March 2021, nine people were injured during an incident, for which a gas explosion was eyed as the likely cause on Paulding Avenue in Westchester Square. In January 2022, a 77-year-old woman and seven people were injured following an explosion, a fire, and a building collapse in Longwood.

 

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that an elderly neighbor heard an explosion between 3 and 4 a.m. In fact, we misheard the resident and he actually said, “around a quarter to 8.” The story has since been updated. We also earlier reported that Bern Construction company had been seen working in the area but this was not actually the case and the story has since been updated.