Gas Cut For LES NYCHA Residents After Cement Truck Flips Over

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — A cement truck tipped over at a public housing construction site — forcing two buildings of residents to go without electricity, gas and elevators Wednesday, according to city officials.

A cement truck accidentally fell over about 10:30 a.m. along FDR Drive at New York City Housing Authority's Baruch Houses, according to spokespeople for NYCHA and the FDNY.

The truck fell onto a gas line at the active construction site, which is a part of a larger recovery and resiliency project that has undergone criticism in recent months from residents and local politicians.

NYCHA worked with Con Ed to shut off gas and electricity as a precaution for 134 apartments, and FDNY cut off elevators at two buildings, 555 and 549 FDR Drive.

Residents at both buildings spent most of the day without service. Electricity and elevators were restored Wednesday.

Gas service had still not been restored by Thursday morning, and NYCHA did not provide a timeline for when it would be. The authority said it is working with the Department of Buildings and Con Edison to turn it back on.

NYCHA says it was giving out electric hot plates to residents barred from using their kitchen stoves. Some residents at other Baruch buildings face ongoing outages since at least April, NYCHA records show.

The cement truck tipping over comes weeks after a crane snapped and crashed into a building at Jacob Riis Houses several blocks north.

The crane didn't injure anyone, but led to residents displaced for several hours, some overnight, in the middle of scorching August heat. The crane company was barred from continuing work on all its New York City work sites and slapped with $110,000 fines.

How the recovery work at NYCHA developments has been carried out came under scrutiny from East Village pol Rivera.

In August, she called for an audit of the resiliency work, intended to fortify NYCHA buildings from devastating impact like that of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

"Our community is watching in awe as NYCHA’s own FEMA resiliency money is being spent in ways that have left tenants feeling miserable, turning my largest public housing development into what looks like the surface of the moon," Councilmember Carlina Rivera wrote to NYCHA's new CEO Gregory Russ Aug. 9, Curbed reported.

Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who just announced new legislation for $32 billion in federal funds for NYCHA, said on Twitter, "I want to know how this accident occurred! We need to be sure residents and neighbors are safe!"

Video from the Citizen App Wednesday shows the truck lying on its side in a fenced in area near Baruch Houses along FDR Drive:

This article has been updated with additional information from NYCHA.