A home on 260th Street in the Floral Park section of Queens exploded this afternoon. Currently, it is a third alarm situation with over 100 firefighters responding to the fire, which has spread to other homes. WCBS 2 reports, "Officials believe the explosion may have been caused by a gas leak. CBS 2 has learned that Con Edison officials had been called to the area earlier Friday after reports of gas fumes coming out of the sewers." So far, reports say two people were injured and that the house was destroyed.





Gee, another gas explosion in Queens. We're averaging about 1 per week at this point. In fact, I propose a new Gothamist feature: the Queens gas explosion map.... I guess a little thing called "preventative maintenance" is just completely beyond Con Edison's reach at this point. Good news for Con Ed stockholders, though: the company declared a dividend of 59 cents per share last week: finance.yahoo.com/news/Con-Edison-Declares-Common-iw-14948301.html
Eeeek!