Yeah, Doc? How Much Time Do You Spend At Live Poultry Markets? Well, Me Neither . . .

City doctors try to convince me that my runny nose is totally unrelated to bird flu:

The bird flu hasn’t hit the city yet — but doctors say fear of it certainly has.

“It’s a scary concept — it’s easy to believe it can happen to you,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, who’s been getting 10 calls a week from patients worried their achy muscles and sniffles are symptoms of the virus.

“The fact is that not even a single bird in the U.S. has it, no less a single person. And in its current form, they won’t get it,” said Siegel, an internist and author of “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic.”

Just Imagine What Would Have Happened If Saddam Had Attacked Us With It!

Even though it’s naturally occurring and accidental, it’s still dangerous:

The authorities widened their investigation into possible anthrax contamination yesterday to include an apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and medical officials were giving antibiotics to seven people who could have been exposed to the spores.

An eight-member team from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including two epidemiologists, along with F.B.I. agents, took samples yesterday from the Manhattan apartment of the man who had contracted anthrax, the Brooklyn warehouse where he used animal skins to make drums for his African dance troupe and a Dodge van that he is believed to have used to transport the skins, which are a suspected source of the bacteria. The results of the laboratory tests might not be available for several days, officials said.

The anthrax patient, Vado Diomande, 44, has been hospitalized in Pennsylvania since he collapsed after an African dance performance at Mansfield University on Feb. 16. He was in stable condition yesterday at Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa. Officials believe he inhaled the anthrax while working with untreated animal hides brought over from Africa.

. . .

In Manhattan, the police sealed Mr. Diomande’s fifth-floor apartment in Greenwich Village, but other building residents were allowed to enter and leave. The authorities also sealed the Brooklyn building where Mr. Diomande worked, an eight-story warehouse at 2 Prince Street, near the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. While the building is mostly used as storage, it also contains several recording and art studios.

Investigators from the federal team — four industrial hygienists, two epidemiologists, one biologist and one laboratory scientist — collected samples from the apartment and the van, while F.B.I. agents took samples from the warehouse. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is analyzing the samples. A C.D.C. spokesman, Thomas W. Skinner, said officials expected to collect more samples today.

. . .

Officials continued trying to reach people who had contact recently with Mr. Diomande or the animal skins he had handled. They reached four of his associates on Wednesday and three more yesterday. One of the seven people taking antibiotics is Mr. Diomande’s wife, Lisa, who accompanied him to the musical performance on Feb. 16 and has been with him since.

A Crown Heights man who reported contact with the animal hides is being given preventive treatment along with his family, the city said in a flier distributed last night at the man’s building, 1100 Dean Street. Neither the man nor anyone in his family is ill, the notice said, but city and federal health officials cordoned off the building late last night. None of the seven people are believed to be at risk of contracting anthrax, Mr. Bloomberg said, adding that antibiotics were an appropriate cautionary measure.

Then there’s the understatement of the week:

“Obviously, the fact that anthrax got into the country and it got through Customs without being detected raises questions,” said Representative Peter T. King, a Republican from Long Island, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “We will have to have an after-action report to find out what happened and what has to be changed in the future.”

Terrorists Aren’t Drummers, Are They?

A West Village man has been hospitalized for a case of “accidental,” “naturally occurring” anthrax:

A New York City man has been hospitalized with a case of anthrax that a federal law enforcement official said may have been contracted from animal skins during a visit to Africa.

The infection appeared to be accidental, and authorities did not believe it was related to terrorism, the official said.

The man traveled recently to the west coast of Africa and became ill shortly after his return, said a federal law enforcement official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

It was not clear how the man came into contact with the deadly substance, but aides to Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was related to his job as a drummer and that federal and city officials traced the exposure to New York City after the man became ill in Pennsylvania.

Rubber Sole

There are still too many things on city streets that can electrocute you:

Stray electrical voltage was found at more than 1,100 sites in the city last year — and 72 of those street lamps, sidewalk grates and utility boxes sizzled with potentially lethal levels of errant electricity.

In its first comprehensive testing of stray voltage, Con Ed found 1,151 faulty pieces of publicly accessible equipment throughout all five boroughs.

About 92 percent of the loose juice was found in streetlights, overwhelmingly in the outer boroughs.

Queens had the worst record, with 404 volt-spewing streetlights, followed by Staten Island with 291, The Bronx with 283 and Brooklyn with 79. Manhattan had just nine energized poles.

Although the number of hazardous sites fell 20 percent from those identified a year earlier, critics said one jolt is too many. The new report points to one particular culprit — old aluminum cables inside streetlights.

Con Ed says that about half of the faulty streetlights are the responsibility of the city Department of Transportation — but that in every case of stray voltage, the utility does cut the power and make the equipment safe until repairs can be done.

When asked whether it had plans to upgrade all the streetlights whose older wiring has proven hazardous, Con Ed would not commit to anything.

Jamaica Bay Boils Over Like Some Kind Of Natural Disaster Flick

Parts of Queens were under water yesterday when the tide, wind and full moon combined in a special way to flood parts of Howard Beach and the Rockaways:

A new moon and persistent eastern winds made water levels rise more than 6 feet above their normal levels, submerging some low-lying areas in more than 3 feet of water.

. . .

While the water levels receded in Howard Beach around midday, later in the afternoon parts of the ocean still filled a five-block stretch along Beach 72nd St. in the Sommerville section of Far Rockaway.

“Water is gonna come; it’s going to seek its own level,” said Joe Poehlman, 52, who has lived on the peninsula all his life and recalled struggling to hold back flood water in his family’s basement as a child.

One block away, Michelle Miely, 39, waded in water up to her ankles as she returned from work to her Almeda Ave. home.

“I’ll take a shower, bath, wash it off,” she said with a shrug. “This has been an ongoing problem.”

A seagull was perched on a nearby roof amid the choppy water in the otherwise lifeless street. It was squawking, stretching and seemingly enjoying its new habitat.

City officials responded quickly to the problem:

The city started getting calls about water-main breaks in the morning, but when Department of Environmental Protection agents arrived, they realized that the salty water was actually coming from the rising Jamaica Bay.

“I’m not aware of any government agency that can help when something like that happens,” said DEP spokesman Ian Michaels.