"Asbestos Not Found in Air After Blast, Officials Say"

I'll believe that when the first responders don't get cancer.
Clipped from the NYTimes:

Asbestos has been found in the muddy dirt and debris that was spewed forth in a thunderous steam pipe explosion that jolted Midtown Manhattan on Wednesday evening. But no asbestos was found in the air, as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others had initially feared.

The explosion on Wednesday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.

One person died, officials said, and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically.

“There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

That's a relief. As Mike Dukakis would say, the infrastructure is deteriorating. And it has been for years, so no alarms and no surprises there. I feel better already. As to, I don't know, repairing the infrastructure, maybe not all of the anti-terrorism money that's being sent to the cities will be spent on crowd suppression weapons and surveillance. Maybe they'll find it in their cold cold heart's to throw the people a dime. But I wouldn't hold my breath unless I didn't want Asbestos related cancer in the future.