It may be impossible to hop on an E train to safety:

The city’s plan to get people out of the path of a hurricane might make anyone uncomfortable who remembers Aug. 8, 2007.

That’s when three inches of rain came down in one hour and flooding shut down the subway.

“We would use our mass-transit system to evacuate the majority of people,” said Amy Schultz of the Office of Emergency Management at a City Council hearing yesterday.

An OEM brochure offers the same advice: “If the city issues an evacuation order . . . use public transportation if possible.”

That might not be possible. After last August’s meltdown, MTA chief Eliot Sander said the subway can handle only about an inch and a half of rain in an hour.

A major storm would “severely” affect the subway, Schultz acknowledged, but the evacuation would begin early, perhaps days before the storm.

“We’ve worked out the timing,” she said. “We have to ensure there’s enough time so the subway can be shut down.” Trains would not run during a hurricane.

August 8, 2007 . . . oh yeah, that sucked.

When that trip to the shore or holiday with the in-laws turns potentially deadly:

When Lauren Papapietro boarded a New Jersey Transit train at Pennsylvania Station in February, she stood in the vestibule between the cars with a half-dozen other passengers, as she does most nights when seats are scarce. As the train rolled out of the station, the door six inches from where she stood opened for nearly a minute before the train stopped and the conductors scurried to close it.

“I was scared to death,” said Ms. Papapietro, 21, a senior at Monmouth University who works at a public relations firm in Manhattan. “I kind of trust New Jersey Transit to get me back and forth, and I really hope this doesn’t happen again.”

Yet doors on New Jersey Transit trains have opened improperly at least four other times in the past two months, far more frequently than on moving Metro-North or Long Island Rail Road trains.

Then in February, as a train left the North Elizabeth station during the evening rush, the third and fourth cars uncoupled, leaving hundreds of passengers in cars not attached to an engine.

While New Jersey Transit says that the problem of malfunctioning doors is not widespread, these isolated incidents have shaken employees and riders alike.

. . .

Riders are routinely told not to stand between cars, but feel compelled to do so during peak hours when cars are so crowded that it is standing- room-only and conductors cannot make their way through the aisle to collect fares.

When questioned, rail industry consultants said they wondered whether New Jersey Transit is cutting corners on maintenance, or is stretched too thin as it tries to keep up with record demand.

“It raises concerns and sounds to me like something that needs to be reviewed in detail,” said James E. Burnett Jr., a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal government’s safety watchdog responsible for investigating accidents. “It’s a serious thing for doors to come open and cars to come uncoupled. The ideal response is to investigate this and to determine where the responsibility lies, not necessarily for accountability, but to make safety corrections.”

Time was, New Yorkers only concerned themselves with jumbo jets flying into buildings. Now they worry about cranes, as well:

New York has always been a city of construction cranes: They are the steel crutches of the skyline, forever pulling it upward. But when one of them collapsed on the East Side on Saturday — killing at least four people, demolishing a building and damaging at least five others — the disaster exposed the often-uneasy relationship cranes have had with the New Yorkers who walk below them.

Officials said that about 250 cranes were now in operation in the five boroughs, a telling sign of the city’s building boom. Construction cranes are towering behemoths, signposts of the city’s prosperity that dominate the skyline for months but often go unnoticed.

Yet on Sunday, those who lived, worked or happened to be walking near the cranes looked upward with anxiety, their nerves rattled by Saturday’s collapse.

A gas station cashier who works below a crane at West 24th Street and 10th Avenue said he trusted God to protect him. A neighbor who lives across the street, Ana Gonçalves, puts her faith in the builders and hopes they know what they are doing. Victor Simpkins, another neighbor, has watched the crane for weeks, but now he looks up at it with a new suspicion.

“If that thing would fall over, my building would be toast,” said Mr. Simpkins, 53, a designer and filmmaker.

. . .

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg acknowledged the danger of high-rise construction, but said residents near cranes were generally safe. “Do I think that you should worry if there’s a crane across the street?” the mayor said at a news conference on Sunday. “No. This is such a rare thing that I don’t think we should worry about it.”

But as cranes have proliferated, so, too, have accidents associated with them. Last year, there were eight crane-related “accidents,” up from five in 2006; and 21 crane-related “incidents,” up from 14. As the city’s Department of Buildings defines them, “accidents” involve fatalities or injuries, and “incidents” do not.

The collapse of the 205-foot crane on Saturday — described by city and union officials as one of the worst crane accidents in memory — gave rise to a grim New York City parlor game, one that pedestrians have doubtlessly played in the back of their minds over the years: If that crane fell, where would it hit?

“We thought about it, and we think if it falls, it will probably fall into the park or bounce off that clock tower,” said Jarrod Shandley, 25, who lives with two roommates in a penthouse that looks out onto a crane at East 23rd Street and Madison Avenue.

. . .

Some New Yorkers showed no fear of cranes. Mr. Shandley, who lives in the penthouse, said crane anxiety after Saturday’s collapse was “an irrational fear.” Mr. Shandley, who works for a financial research company, added, “I don’t think you should be any more worried about a crane than crossing the street and getting hit by a cab.”

Consumers seem to be wildly unimpressed by sushi-mercury scares:

Sara Barokas, a substitute teacher, noticed the yellow-and-red signs above the sushi case at the Gourmet Garage market on Broadway: “Protect yourself and your family!!! Mercury in sushi.”

By the time the sliding doors parted and she walked in at noontime on Wednesday, she had also heard about laboratory tests that found high levels of mercury in tuna bought at 20 Manhattan stores and restaurants, including the Gourmet Garage. Its tuna had the second-highest mercury level in the study, 1.25 parts per million.

She bought 12 pieces of tuna sushi anyway.

“It’s something I enjoy,” she said. “I don’t eat sushi every day, so in moderation is it really a problem? It sounds like one of those everyday things they tell us could be harmful. Last week, what was it, caffeine for pregnant women is harmful? That’s common sense.”

Next time you’re weekending at the Hamptons, consider the tsunami threat:

The risk is low. But the consequences could be high, with deadly waves striking the coastal communities of Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey and killing thousands of people.

Today, the federal government is announcing that it has completed the mid-Atlantic region’s risk assessments for the killer mounds of water known as tsunamis, or tidal waves.

Scientists have long considered the West Coast of North America as the side of the continent most likely to suffer earthquakes and the undersea disturbances that raise tsunamis. But in recent years, with a growing appreciation of the diverse origins of the giant waves and their potential for havoc, experts have found new reasons for vigilance along the East Coast.

“Tsunamis are a real threat,” said Lisa Taylor, an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is conducting the assessments for coastal regions that are considered at risk. A main factor is whether the land rises sharply or gently, the latter being more prone to poundings from unexpectedly high waves.

The project creates elevation maps of coastal lands and adjacent seafloors, helping scientists better forecast the areas that a tsunami would flood. The giant waves can arise hundreds of miles away, in theory giving emergency planners hours to send people to higher ground.

Part of the new analysis focuses on the easternmost area of Long Island, including East Hampton and Southampton, and the southeastern coast of Connecticut, including Mystic and Old Saybrook. The analysis also evaluates the risk for Atlantic City.

The bug of the hour has an air of great power:

The MRSA “superbug” infection that led to the death of a 12-year-old in Brooklyn last month is now showing up in schools and other public settings on Staten Island.

A Wagner College student came down with MRSA and a high school student at St. Joseph by-the-Sea has been rumored to have a drug-resistant strain of the infection, though officials at the Huguenot school have not confirmed that case.

A Wagner College spokesman confirmed yesterday that a student at the Grymes Hill campus had been diagnosed last week with MRSA, which often manifests as a skin infection and is resistant to most, but not all antibiotics. Officials there issued a campus-wide e-mail recently and mailed a letter to parents stating that a student had been found to have had the infection.

“. . . The student has responded well, and though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not require or even recommend community notification where there is a single, isolated case of MRSA diagnosed, we believed it prudent to share this information,” Wagner President Richard Guarasci wrote to parents.

A good idea, until it became clear no one could possibly do it:

Health and education officials canceled a recommendation yesterday that called for scrubbing schools daily in the wake of the “superbug” scare, but admitted they don’t have a concrete plan to handle new infections.

News of the death of Omar Rivera, a 12-year-old Brooklyn boy, of an antibiotic-resistant staph infection prompted both agencies to send out a joint advisory last Friday.

It called for all schools to “clean ‘flat surfaces’ every day. This includes desktops, cafeteria tables, door knobs, toilet seats, sinks and drinking fountains.”

But speaking on WNYC radio yesterday, Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said washing every school desk every day isn’t needed to stop the spread of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, commonly known as MRSA.

The desk-cleaning advisory was removed from the Department of Health’s Web site.

“It was an error on the part of the department, and when it was brought to our attention, we removed it,” Frieden later told The Post.

And now you tell us:

Frieden further downplayed worries about MRSA. He noted that the only place it spreads in schools is on sports teams, and that regular hand-washing is the best prevention.

“I think the only thing close to reaching epidemic proportions here is fear,” he said.

The super-resistant staph infection that recently crossed state lines is here:

New York City health officials said yesterday that a Brooklyn middle school student who died on Oct. 14 had become infected with a virulent, drug-resistant strain of bacteria that is primarily spread in hospitals but that in recent years has surfaced increasingly in schools, gyms and other nonhospital settings.

The health officials, who said they were investigating the circumstances of the case, were unable to confirm whether the student contracted the infection at the school, Intermediate School 211 in Canarsie. The school remained open yesterday, and the officials said that school health officials would make any decision to close it.

It may not be the killer bee, but it has the potential to be a lot more annoying:

They’re aggressive, often attack in packs and, unlike most mosquitoes, bite during the day.

And they’re carriers for such debilitating tropical diseases as chikungunya, yellow and dengue fever. They can carry dog heartworm and different types of encephalitis.

The Asian Tiger mosquito has landed on Staten Island. And although the 2007 season is winding down (the first frost will kill most remaining bugs), its presence could be felt even stronger after eggs from this year’s mosquitoes hatch come spring, experts say.

First spotted here in 1997, the white-striped insect scientifically known as Aedes albopictus, has become increasingly prevalent in the borough, causing experts to fear consequences more severe than from West Nile virus.

. . .

Typically, mosquitoes belonging to the Culex family are found in the New York area. The Culex salinarius and Culex restuans, which carry the feared West Nile virus, generally bite around dusk and after dark.

But the Asian Tiger mosquito bites in the middle of the day and, often, several will bite humans at the same time, leaving welts the size of dimes. Besides having disease-carrying potential, the pests can affect quality of life for people who like to be outdoors, Gaugler said. The Asian Tiger mosquito is ranked among the 100 most invasive species on the planet.

The staph infection that had stayed away from the city but which showed up in Fairfield County this past week inches even closer and crosses into New Rochelle:

Ten members of the Iona College football team have been infected with the so-called superbug MRSA, health officials said on Friday.

The most severely affected student athlete was hospitalized for a few days, and eight other team members and a coach received outpatient treatment, Iona spokeswoman Cecelia Donohoe said.

All the cases have been caught early and were mild, “a pimple or a boil,” she said.

She said the outbreak, which can be spread by skin-to-skin contact or sharing an item used by an infected person, is under control and all team members with open wounds have been banned from playing football.

The anecdotal evidence well established, DEP officials will perform a formal olfactory survey of Hunts Point:

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection has tapped an engineering consulting firm to conduct an odor survey of Hunts Point over four days starting tomorrow, with the public asked to be the bloodhounds — phoning in when they pick up the scent.

The purpose of the survey is to identify the odors prevalent in the Hunts Point area and establish their sources.

The new pungency patrol is part of a seven-page agreement City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo (D-South Bronx) wrangled from the DEP as the price for dropping her opposition to an expansion and upgrade of the Hunts Point Wastewater Treatment Facility to be built in her district.

The $235 million project was approved by the City Council Monday by a 48-to-0 vote.

The Council approval of several land-use actions will allow the DEP to begin work, expected to take eight years, on four egg-shaped, 130-foot-high “digester” tanks, where bacteria will break down sludge into a bio-solid for use as compost and fertilizer.

Tomorrow, inspectors from the Malcolm Pirnie Inc. consulting firm will be in Hunts Point from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., ready to track down odors called in by residents to a special hotline.

They’ll be back in the evenings from 5p.m. to 10 p.m. on the following Monday and Thursday, then again on Tuesday, Sept. 25.

. . .

The DEP has even offered a list of descriptors useful for characterizing odors under three broad categories:

“Almond-like” odors might be sweet, smoky, earthy, metallic, acidic, oily or like mothballs.

“Sulfidic” odors could be yeasty, fruity, putrid, fecal, buttery or honeylike.

“Alcohol-like” smells may be rubbery, sooty, coffee-like, chemical or like fried chicken.

Three sightings makes a trend:

Sunbathers found a shark on Staten Island’s South Beach yesterday — a dead, blue-eyed beastie no more than 2 feet long.

The silver-skinned, dorsal-finned sand shark was no man-eater, but it fascinated beach-goers who found it floating near the northernmost end of the beach.

Victoria Torello of Prince’s Bay and Maria Sciabica of Grasmere called the city Parks Department in order to save the shark from becoming poked at and picked apart by seagulls and curious beachfolk. Parks scooped the animal into a black plastic bag and took it away, most likely to be trashed or composted.

“We just felt bad for it,” said Ms. Sciabica. “It’s God’s creature.”

Sand sharks are fairly prevalent in the New York Bay, according to marine environmentalist Jim Scarcella of the Natural Resources Protective Association, who occasionally sees them pulled up on fishing lines off the Ocean Breeze pier.

“They’re becoming more and more common because of changes in the ecosystem,” he said, noting that the scavengers will slither into shallow waters when food becomes scarce further in.

“The good news,” he added, “is that they pose absolutely no risk to bathers or swimmers.”

Another 2-foot sand shark, a live one, washed up at Coney Island over Labor Day weekend, prompting a lifeguard there to rescue it from the blows of frightened swimmers and coax it back to sea.

A 5-foot thresher shark also scared beachgoers at Rockaway Beach in Queens that weekend: A greater threat, because the thresher is known to be more aggressive, Scarcella said.

Jeez, Doctor Downer:

The widespread havoc wreaked by two major hurricanes in Central America and Mexico in the past two weeks may be making headlines worldwide, but the idea of a similar catastrophe befalling the five boroughs seems as remote as ever for millions of New Yorkers.

But not for Queens College Professor Nicholas Coch.

. . .

So, what is in the cards for Queens and the city, if and when a hurricane strikes?

The city’s Office of Emergency Management has spent hours trying to answer that question in hopes of formulating an evacuation plan.

Under their doomsday scenario, a Category 3 storm would likely begin brewing in late August off the west coast of Africa. There, a cluster of high-pressure weather systems converge and arrange into a dark swirling mass that starts to make its way across the Atlantic along a current of warm tropical water. Perhaps the hurricane roars across the Caribbean, much the way one did late last month. Eventually, it begins churning north.

But it is unclear whether the storm will end up hitting New York on its northbound route. The hurricane has already charted a predictable course along the so-called “Atlantic conveyor belt,” but once it goes farther north than Florida and the Carolinas, it begins moving erratically and picks up speed — making it increasingly difficult to predict exactly where it will land.

“When you’re viewing it from Cape Hatteras (in North Carolina),” Coch says, “you can sit back, sip a gin and tonic and watch the storm move slowly over the ocean.” But by the time it appears to be on a path toward New York, “you’ve got about six hours to get out . . . Otherwise, forget it: You’re gone.”

As the Category 3 hurricane churns its way up the coast, the mayor and OEM officials are meeting to discuss how they will handle a mammoth evacuation. City officials estimate that anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.4 million people will need to leave their homes in a short amount of time, if the storm starts barreling toward the city.

. . .

But OEM’s evacuation plan, deemed inadequate in a report conducted by the New York State Assembly last year, will be put to the test. City officials must figure out how to stretch their resources — 881 public shelters for an estimated 1.4 million evacuees who say they would need public shelter during a major hurricane, according to an Army Corps of Engineers study.

That is, of course, if New Yorkers actually decide to leave. The cumbersome two-tier system of evacuation will deter many residents from evacuating, the state report found. Some 40 percent of people will decide not to leave when they learn they must first report to a reception center before they are brought to a shelter.

Others will stay at their homes, because they don’t fully appreciate the threat, Coch worries. “In this situation, one of the most dangerous things in New York are the New Yorkers and their New Yorker mentality,” he said. “They don’t want to be told to evacuate, because so many people think a hurricane could never hit here. Just couldn’t happen.

“Of course, by the time it does hit, it’ll be too late for them.”

For residents seeking a reception center, the mere task of arriving at the designated centers will be a challenge, since many locations are not accessible by public transportation. And as severe thunderstorms buffet the city, the transit system seems closer than ever to failing amid the inclement weather and sudden influx of fleeing riders.

Residents who do make it to the centers will be faced with yet another obstacle: transportation from the center to a shelter.

The city has dedicated roughly 6,000 school buses to the evacuation effort, though it’s unclear who will drive them, and the simple logistics of appointing drivers to evacuation vehicles hasn’t been worked out. Under the city’s evacuation plan, regular school bus drivers have been designated for the task, although no one has notified them of their responsibilities, and no one knows which city employees could fill their drivers’ seats if and when they don’t show up.

And then there’s this: “Potential Tropical Storm Could Strike NYC”. Yeesh!

It’s kind of like the Simpsons . . . if Homer really had the lives of 40 million people throughout the region in his hands:

The guard was discovered about 2 p.m. on Aug. 26 during a routine check by an inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an N.R.C. spokesman said.

. . .

The guard was stationed at a checkpoint outside a secured entrance to the plant’s operating area. To get through, a person must swipe a badge that matches their palm print, according to Jim Steets, a spokesman for the plant’s owner, Entergy Nuclear Northeast.

Neil Sheehan, the N.R.C. spokesman, said the inspector stood 8 to 10 feet from the guard and, for about 10 minutes, tried to rouse him. Finally, as the inspector raised his voice, the guard stood up.

The guard has been suspended, with pay, while an investigation is conducted. Tests for drug and alcohol were negative, Mr. Sheehan said.

Mr. Steets said the guard had worked at the plant for about five years. “This is a person’s life and career we’re looking at,” he said. “Clearly it’s unacceptable if he’s inattentive to duty at his post, but before making a final decision, we want to look at all the circumstances.”

Maybe you were wondering whether there are ever sharks at city beaches. The answer is of course there are sharks at city beaches:

Rockaway Beach looked like Amity Island yesterday as hundreds of screaming swimmers scrambled out of the surf after a 6-foot shark — and its ominous dorsal fin — was spotted close to the shore.

“It was scary,” said Julio Lento, 15, of Brooklyn.

“I didn’t want to get eaten.”

Experts believe it was a relatively harmless thresher shark — but during the mad dash for land, the killer great white “Jaws” was on everyone’s mind.

Sunbathers shouted, “Shark!” and “Get out of the water!” while lifeguards frantically blew their whistles to warn people.

Those who dared look behind could see a fin circling about 20 feet from the shoreline.

The beach was shut down immediately from Beach 107th Street to Beach 121st Street, said a Parks Department spokesman.

It reopened some five hours later.

Emergency responders from the FDNY and NYPD rushed to the scene, and a helicopter hovered over the water searching for the menacing-looking creature.

The shark was first spotted around 10:30 a.m. near Beach 109th Street by a couple of eagle-eyed beachgoers about 15 feet off the shore.

“They were saying, ‘What’s that?’ And I looked up and I said, ‘What is that?’” said the lifeguard on duty, who only gave his first name, Justin.

At the time, few people were in the water.

They watched incredulously as the tail flapped in and out of the ocean.

Moments later, the big fish — alive but clearly suffering — washed up on shore near Beach 109th Street.

“This thing was sick or lost its mother,” said Justin.

“It was flipping around. He had a big, floppy tail like an eel.”

Three do-gooders took matters into their own hands and dragged it by its tail into the water, he said.

Once back in the surf, the shark seemed to swim away. He was spotted going out about 50 feet.

But an hour later, when the water was full of swimmers, the shark returned — scaring the daylights out of people and prompting officials to keep swimmers out of the water until about 3:30 p.m.

The fright put a serious damper on the holiday weekend.

. . .

Keith DiLorenzo was so thrilled to see the rare sea dweller that he didn’t want to leave the water when the frenzied mob came rushing out.

While his relatives yelled to him — “Get out! Get out!” — the 12-year-old marine buff tried to get closer to the action.

“I wanted the shark to get close to the shore, so I found a sharp clam and I cut my finger and put drops of blood in the water,” said DiLorenzo, of Floral Park, L.I.

His grandmother, Pat DiLorenzo, said afterward, “When he got on the shore, all I thought was, ‘Thank God summer’s over.’”

And not to let a great story get in the way of the truth, but this was a downer, thanks a lot:

After looking at a photo of the shark that was beached, [Hans Walters, the New York Aquarium's animal department supervisor and resident shark expert] said it was a thresher shark.

“These are deep-water fish,” he said. “It makes me believe someone caught him and released him.”

“I’m just surprised he’s this close.”

Telltale signs of thresher sharks include a tail that’s about half as long as their body, as well as weak teeth and jaws.

“These shark are not dangerous,” said Walters.

“The fact that he kept swimming toward shore leads me to believe that he’s dying.”

The shark later died.

Location Scout: Rockaway Beach.

The Daily News wants you to know that we are all going to die:

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of 166 city bridges labeled “structurally deficient,” putting it in the same category as the one that collapsed into the Mississippi River.

In fact, under the the feds’ rating system, the Brooklyn Bridge scored dramatically lower than the doomed Minneapolis bridge — and the Willis Ave. Bridge, which connects East Harlem to the Bronx, was not much better.

The Brooklyn Bridge also got lousy marks from the state, which called it one of three city bridges in “poor” condition with rusting steel joints and deteriorating brick and mortar on its ramps.

The biggest problem was the roadway deck on the Manhattan and Brooklyn approaches.

The state felt the “poor” rating was enough to raise concerns but not enough to shut down traffic like it did with the nearby Williamsburg Bridge in 1988.

At the city’s iconic landmark, a reporter observed considerable rust on metal structures and areas of missing brick work on the Manhattan anchorage.

Responding to the Daily News’ findings, Charles Carrier, a spokesman for the city Department of Transportation, said, “The bottom line is, if a bridge is unsafe, we close it. Obviously the Brooklyn Bridge was not deemed to be unsafe, but there are issues we’re going to be addressing.”

. . .

City officials stood by what they termed a “state of the art” inspection system and declined to perform additional checks on any of its bridges.

In New York, the federal government has labeled 2,110 bridges “structurally deficient,” of which 166 are in New York City, records show. The feds define this as structures with “deteriorated conditions of significant bridge elements.”

All of these bridges are rated by the U.S. Department of Transportation on the same 1-to-100 scale that gave the Minneapolis bridge a “sufficiency rating” of 50.

Considering factors such as structural adequacy and safety, serviceability and functional obsolescence, the Brooklyn Bridge was given the lowest possible “sufficiency rating,” a zero.

On the other hand, Sewell Chan is not into fear mongering*:

More than 2,000 bridges in New York State meet the federal government’s definition of “structurally deficient,” from the heavily traveled on-ramps of the Brooklyn Bridge to a 28-foot span across Trout Brook near the Canadian border.

The bridge that collapsed Wednesday in Minneapolis had also been labeled structurally deficient. But the term can have a variety of implications, and does not necessarily mean that any of the bridges are in real danger of significant failure. Typically the finding means inspectors have identified some kind of deterioration, cracks or movement.

The ramps to the Brooklyn Bridge, which carries about 132,000 vehicles a day, were downgraded last year from fair to poor condition. Yesterday, city officials said $149 million in repairs to the span were under way and that the bridge was safe. Still, city inspectors were at the bridge yesterday afternoon to check on its condition.

. . .

In the last eight years, the city has spent $3 billion improving some of the 787 bridges it controls, said Lori A. Ardito, the first deputy transportation commissioner. As a result, Ms. Ardito said, the number of bridges that the city deems to be in poor condition dropped to 3 last year from 40 in 1997.

In addition to the Brooklyn Bridge, the two others were a pedestrian bridge at East 78th Street over the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan and a bridge at Willow Lake at 76th Road in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.

Ms. Ardito said “poor” did not mean a structure was at risk of collapse. At the Brooklyn Bridge, the major problem is the roadway deck on the ramps, and not structures that support the roadway. She said a more complete rehabilitation was expected to start in 2010.

“The poor rating for the Brooklyn Bridge means that there’s only components of the bridge that are in poor condition,” she said. “They’re actually the ramps leading to the bridge, not the span of the bridge.”

*Not that he didn’t try . . .

Earlier: Nothing A Little Paint Won’t Fix.

Location Scout: Brooklyn Bridge.

Bloomberg says it’s “not anything other than a failure of our infrastructure” like that somehow makes it better:

A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.

The blast, near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, raised fears of terrorism, but officials were quick to dismiss that possibility. “There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.

The explosion sent up a foul cloud of hot steam mixed with mud, rust-colored gunk and pieces of pavement just before 6 p.m. in one of the busiest parts of the city. The mayor said that some telephone lines had been knocked out, but that electric power had not been.

As people on the sidewalks scrambled to flee and office workers in the buildings above looked down in horror, debris from the geyser pelted nearby skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hailstorm. Some witnesses said the jet of steam roared like Niagara Falls.

Some people ran so fast their shoes came off. Others dropped their briefcases and purses. Men in tailored suits were caught in a lapel-singeing cloud. At a health club high up in the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, people working out on the treadmills said the explosion was so powerful they worried the building would collapse. The steam shot up from a crater that looked like that of a volcano, with orange flames and bubbling mud around the edges. The explosion packed enough force to flip over a tow truck that ended up in the crater, which was about 35 by 40 feet. Several hours after the blast, officials said the crater could grow even larger because pavement at the edges was in danger of collapse.

Did someone leave the burner on over the weekend? Because I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded:

Con Edison, the fire department and multiple city agencies are investigating the source of a gas odor throughout Manhattan this morning.

Widespread reports of the smell have been coming in since around 9 a.m.

The city’s Office of Emergency Management says it is aware of the situation and at this point they are investigating.

Reports indicate the odor is concentrated on the West Side, as far north as the 80s. The odor has also been reported to be particularly strong around Herald Square and in NY1’s neighborhood in Chelsea.

Previously on mysterious, unexplained smells: The Sweet Smell Of Maple Doughnuts, Or Perhaps Eggos, Smell Returns? Mysterious Smell Comes, Goes And Leaves No Clues In Its Wake, Sweet Syrupy Smell, I Wish I Knew How To Quit You!

Governor Spitzer’s new team starts out on the right foot by sounding a fresh theme of hope and prosperity:

It is not a matter of if, but of when the city’s subway system suffers a terrorist attack, Governor Spitzer’s pick as the state’s homeland security tsar, Michael Balboni, said.

Meanwhile, the Republican state senator who is resigning to join the new Spitzer administration said “not a lot is different” in terms of subway security since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

While he praised the ramped-up security at some tunnel entryways into the city as well as a greater police presence underground, he said the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has left gaping holes in the emergency preparedness of its conductors and train operators, who are responsible for initiating evacuations during emergencies. The MTA did not respond to a request for comment.

“There are some unspeakable potential threats out there,” Mr. Balboni said during a telephone interview over the weekend.

In the wake of the Health Department’s move to ban transfats, restauranteurs struggle to sort out what it all means:

Mikey Baker, who runs a Golden Krust Bakery on Worth Street, has high cholesterol and understands the need to eat healthy. He believes the jerk chicken wraps and Jamaican beef patties he sells are indeed healthy, though he never paid much attention to trans fat content.

“The brand of oil we use has no trans fat, but sometimes we might have to use a different brand of oil and to be honest, my main concern is getting the meals made,” Baker said.

He paused and picked up a container of margarine.

“It says 2 grams of trans fat, but it doesn’t list a percentage,” he said. “Is that trans fat-free?”

Baker uses that margarine to steam vegetables. “Maybe I could use olive oil instead. We will look into it and do whatever we have to do.”

Fortunately, no one actually uses Brooklyn’s Dreier-Offerman Park:

His small plane sputtering in the skies above Brooklyn, a New Jersey pilot played Capt. Cool yesterday and landed the Cessna right smack in the middle of a city park.

“It was a walk in the park,” Paul Dudley said after calmly guiding the faltering single-engine plane onto a field at Drier Offerman Park in Gravesend.

“This was tailor-made,” the 51-year-old pilot said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better place to land — except an airport.”

. . .

Police said no one was hurt in what Dudley, the director of the Linden Municipal Airport in New Jersey, shrugged off as a “big nothing.”

Frightened local residents said they saw the plane putt-putting low over the tops of buildings just across a creek from Coney Island.

“It sounded like he was in trouble — I thought it would crash,” said Ida DeGorter, who works at a local bus depot. “It came right over the garage. It came so low, we could see the pilot.”

Federal Aviation Administration officials will investigate the cause of the emergency landing.

Dudley, who has houses in the Hamptons and Staten Island, was flying the 28-year-old Cessna alone from Westhampton, L.I., to Linden when the engine started giving out as he neared Coney Island.

Instead of continuing across New York Harbor, he searched for a safe place to land.

“I didn’t want to risk taking it across the water,” he said. “I saw this open field of grass and decided to land it.”

Dudley touched down near several soccer fields and skidded to a halt after rolling about 150 feet.

Next to getting your foot run over by an 18-wheeler while waiting to cross at an intersection, this is probably everyone’s second-worst fear:

A subway train roared underground with some doors open, sources told the Daily News yesterday, describing a frightening ride for the passengers.

The Manhattan-bound A train left the Grant Ave. station in Brooklyn with some doors open late Saturday night and didn’t stop until the first few cars reached the next station, at Euclid Ave., a transit source said.

“The doors were in fact open,” another source said.

The Transit Authority has launched an investigation, said TA spokesman Paul Fleuranges.

“This incident should NOT have happened,” Fleuranges said in a statement. “If it happened as you describe it . . . then there were some very serious violations of our operating rules and procedures. We are all relieved there were no injuries to our customers or crew.”

The train was taken to a TA yard for a battery of tests, and the crew was taken off the rails, Fleuranges said. Both the motorman and conductor were given drug and alcohol tests, a standard investigatory move.

According to the transit source, the conductor told supervisors that he left his cab at the Grant Ave. station to see what was preventing a door, or doors, from closing. As he walked from car to car, the train took off, he said. After some difficulty, the conductor contacted the motorman by intercom and the train was halted.

The NYPD runs a terror-attack drill focused on schools:

During the early part of the exercise, the information from the Staten Island school is sketchy.

The narrator tells them the terrorists have grabbed an NYPD radio, allowing them to listen in on what cops are planning. And this forces police to think of alternate ways of communicating.

Then, the narrator tells them, the terrorists release a teacher, who reports that four of the attackers are wearing bulky black vests with wires protruding — and are growing increasingly agitated.

Some of the students manage to call their parents by cellphone, and panicking moms and dads gather at the school, he said.

Suddenly, a large explosion goes off on the roof. More shots are heard inside.

What should the cops do?

Members of the Technical Assistance Response Unit — known as the “Mission: Impossible” squad — wanted to place eavesdropping devices in the school so they could find out more about what was going on.

Finally, the attackers release their demands — they want terrorists jailed overseas to be freed or they’ll kill at least five of the hostages.

“Do we go in?” Browne asked.

Different ideas are suggested. Bomb Squad and hostage negotiators weigh in. More information, many agree, is the key.

One big concern was to not over-commit police resources — to one or both of the schools — as doing so might leave cops vulnerable should a third crisis erupt.

I’m hoping they’re a little more prepared than “we need more information” . . .

Great, now you tell us:

The concrete and metal barriers put up outside buildings in Manhattan deemed possible terrorist targets after Sept. 11 are being removed.

Counterterrorism experts said the planters and traffic medians known as jersey barriers caused pedestrian traffic problems, were in some cases never really needed and could shatter into dangerous flying debris through an explosion in others.

Barriers have been removed at 30 of some 50 to 70 skyscrapers, office buildings and museums, a Transportation Department spokeswoman confirmed last night. [Emph. added because what the fuck!?]

Next you’ll tell us that Operation Hercules is a bad idea because it leaves vulnerable too many police officers in one place . . .

The GAO reports “large quantities of radium” in Great Kills Park:

High levels of radium were found in Gateway National Recreation Area in Great Kills when anti-terrorism officials conducted a helicopter survey of city radiation sources last summer to prepare for potential terrorist attacks using so-called dirty radiation bombs, but that fact was revealed only yesterday in a congressional survey.

The aerial survey found 80 unexpected radiation “hot spots” around the city, according to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which stated that the NYPD had singled out “a local park” that was “contaminated by large quantities of radium.”

NYPD officials confirmed that the park was Gateway’s Great Kills Park, a portion of which served as a city landfill until the 1930s. It became federal parkland in 1972.

A piece of metal equipment — possibly part of an old X-ray machine — was found underground on Aug. 2, 2005, and it was removed the next day from a portion of an area between the Great Kills Ranger station and the model airplane field, said Tom O’Connell, site manager for the park. An investigation by federal environmental officials found that the radiation levels posed no current risk to human health, according to officials with close knowledge of the survey.

. . .

Vincent Scavuzzo, another Great Kills resident, said he’s skeptical that everything is OK. But Scavuzzo added that the news would not stop him from taking daily walks in the park with his wife, Toni.

“I don’t like the idea that they found something like that,” he said. “Maybe they should do some testing, test the soil, test the water. Anything that’s around here, they should do tests.”

Elaine Borruso agreed.

“You’d hate to think you could come into contact with [radiological material],” she said, adding that she wants the National Park Service to do more testing.

Officials downplayed the threat:

O’Connell, who worked with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy during the investigation, said people should not worry about the news.

“It is no more harmful for a human than having a cigarette on a sunny day,” said O’Connell, who was present during the EPA and DOE’s investigation. “But the only way it would have that effect is if you were sitting in the hole [where the equipment was found].”

Neil Young has dispatched a crew of soundmen to steal our soul:

All week, a man with a microphone has walked the subway platforms to collect the clattering of the rivets and the whistling horns, the distortion in the loudspeaker, the hush in the compressor’s song and the dying of the brake like some wounded thing.

Even in that racket, some find value. The recordings are the chief selling point of a new reproduction of a subway train by the Lionel model train company made under a license from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for completion by year’s end.

Other companies have made models before, but this one pays unparalleled attention to sonic detail, recreating the subterranean soundscape in elaborate hi-fi to win the favor of collectors and self-styled train geeks, keepers of a nostalgic anachronism to rank alongside comic books and baseball cards.

Among their number count the musician Neil Young, so devoted that he conceived a control system to reproduce the sounds of the rails, then acquired a minority interest in Lionel more than a decade ago.

“Realism is the byword,” Mr. Young said by telephone. “It’s a heavy thing moving down a track, like a real thing even though it’s a miniature.”

. . .

Recording began below Brooklyn on Monday, in the tunnels of the New York Transit Museum. There [Bruce R.] Koball was joined by a few transit supervisors and Mark Wolodarsky, an off-duty conductor. Mr. Wolodarsky was standing in the cab of Car 9306, a model R33s introduced in 1963 to run the 20-minute route from Times Square to the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens.

“I’m more or less ready to rock and roll here,” Mr. Koball declared.

Mr. Wolodarsky activated the train’s generator to charge the batteries, then opened and closed the doors. The men on the platform deemed the action too fast, and Mr. Wolodarsky tried again.

“There was no puff of air,” lamented a supervisor, James Harris. Mr. Wolodarsky tried again. In this manner they recorded the compressors and the generator, the brakes and the brake release. There were two long buzzes and two short, signals between conductor and motorman, then a low whistle, a guttural rumble and a high lonesome sound.

. . .

“It’s a symphony of motion and sound,” Mr. Young said. “New York City. What’s more American than that?”

The giant oil spill circulating underneath Greenpoint is leaking methane gas:

High levels of explosive methane vapors in shallow soil near the massive Greenpoint oil spill have forced alarmed state officials to do emergency gas testing in nearby homes, the Daily News has learned.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is pushing local residents to sign up to have their homes checked for the potentially combustible vapors.

“They should have come years ago,” said disgusted homeowner Dorothy Swick, who lives on Hausman St. “Nobody ever told me how dangerous it was.”

The gases are believed to be bubbling up from a 17 million gallon underground oil spill discovered in 1978.

. . .

The elevated gas levels, released last week, were found in tests done by ExxonMobil contractor Roux Associates under orders from the DEC.

It was the first time the state or the oil giant have acknowledged gas from the Newtown Creek oil spill could be hazardous to residents.

The testing also found elevated readings of benzene, which can cause cancer.

The potentially lethal vapors were found in a commercial and industrial area — but there are some homes across the street from at least one testing site.

The vapors were found in soil samples along Bridgewater St., at the intersections of Apollo St., Norman Ave., and at Nassau Ave. and Hausman St.

And not to sound like too much of a wuss, but it makes the idea of kayaking and — ew! — crabbing in Newtown Creek seem a little premature . . .

See also: Better Late Than Never.

Oh Fung Wah, say it ain’t so:

Officials say the bus departed from the Fung Wah bus company on Canal Street for Boston Tuesday morning. But passengers did not make it safely to their destination.

Authorities say the bus flipped on its side in Auburn, Massachusetts, which is about 44 miles west of Boston. With less than an hour left in the trip, officials say the driver decided to take exit 7 off of Route 290. Investigators believe he did not slow down around the bend.

“I believe that it’s safe to conclude the driver of the bus was operating at a speed that was greater than reasonable and proper for the driving conditions,” Auburn Police Chief Andrew Sluckis said.

The driver, questioned by police, could face charges. Officials say all 57 passengers on board, including a 3-year-old toddler, were able to evacuate the bus before rescue crews arrived. No serious injuries were reported, but 31 passengers were taken to a local hospital.

Fung Wah, which means “magnificent wind,” is a popular bus company in Chinatown that runs frequent trips from New York’s Chinatown to Boston’s Chinatown.

Fung Wah employees had no comment, but at $15 a trip, customers say the bargain is too good to pass up.

“I guess I’m a little nervous,” one rider said. “But, I mean, I’m still going to take the bus.”

Fung Wah is no stranger to accidents. In August of last year, one of its buses heading back to New York burst into flames. No fatalities were reported in that incident. As for today’s accident, it may have some passengers saying an extra prayer, but it is clearly not stopping business.

See also, “Everybody Fung Wah Tonight” (Black Table, November 5, 2003)

Spraying has intensified around Staten Island after a man was diagnosed with West Nile Virus:

After a Staten Island man was diagnosed as having the state’s first human case of West Nile virus this year, the city Health Department will spray pesticide from trucks tomorrow between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the following neighborhoods: New Dorp, Oakwood, Oakwood Beach, Bay Terrace, Chelsea, Graniteville, Bloomfield, Bulls Head, Old Place and Mariners Harbor.

If weather doesn’t permit, spraying will be delayed until Thursday or the next possible night.

. . .

For this application, city workers will apply Anvil 10+10 (Sumithrin), a synthetic pyrethroid used in mosquito-control efforts. A 2001 study sponsored by the city Health Department found that the pesticide had no repercussions for people’s health when applied correctly. To read the report, go to http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/wnv/feis.shtml.

During the application, people with asthma or other respiratory conditions are encouraged to stay indoors, since there is the possibility that spraying could worsen these conditions. It’s all right to run air conditioners, but to reduce the possibility of exposure, health officials recommend closing the machines’ vents.

See also: Save The Dorp!

Virtually all of Staten Island has mosquitoes that are carrying the West Nile virus:

Since a mosquito pool in Grasmere tested positive for West Nile in late June, the virus has been found in mosquitoes in 11 of Staten Island’s 12 ZIP codes, according to statistics compiled by the city Health Department.

The only ZIP code not affected was 10304 — which includes Stapleton, Todt Hill, Clifton and Concord.

In fact, with the exception of small pockets in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, West Nile activity has been concentrated on Staten Island — but so far, it’s been confined to mosquitoes.

No human cases have been reported anywhere in the city or state this summer. And none of the 2,500 dead birds tested citywide turned up positive for the West Nile virus this year, according to Sara Markt, a Health Department spokeswoman.

The next round of pesticide spraying is scheduled to begin tonight at 8 p.m. and continue through tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.

The pesticide Anvil 10+10 (Sumithrin) will be sprayed from trucks in New Dorp, Oakwood, Oakwood Beach, Bay Terrace, Chelsea, Graniteville, Bloomfield, Bulls Head and Mariners Harbor.