Earlier this year, a Queens home in the Floral Park section exploded, killing wife and mother of three Ghanwatti Boodram. Now the Daily News reports, "Con Edison workers stumbled and bumbled for more than an hour instead of evacuating a Queens house before it blew up in April, a new state report says."
Neighbors had called Con Ed about a gas leak; the report claims that the "dispatcher took 22 minutes to find a mechanic - who then spent 45 minutes testing dangerous gas levels without telling people to leave their homes in Floral Park... The unnamed mechanic was preparing to knock on the door of 80-50 260th St. when it exploded, killing Ghanwatti Boodram." A lawyer representing Boodram's husband, who is suing Con Ed, said, "They probably didn't dispatch the right people."
Con Ed says it has changed its procedure for investigating gas leaks. And City Councilman Eric Gioia gave some advice, "If you had called the Fire Department instead of Con Ed, you would have gotten a completely different response." So maybe call both.
