Deadly Explosion on 116th street in Harlem, NY

Weds. 3/12
NBC News: 1:30 PM
Pix 11 News: 11:30 AM
CBS News 5:00 PM

      On March 12th at 9:31 AM there was an explosion on 116th street and Park Avenue in Harlem NY. The explosion effected two buildings resulting in smoke and flames. Before the explosion happened there were reporting from a Con Ed worker as well as people neighboring the building of a strong odor of gas minutes before the blast as well as a few days before. There were over 200 firefighters and policemen on the scene. The building that were affected were a Christian church as well as a 5 story building with a store front as well as apartments. After the flames were put out the rescue crews went on a search to find the victims of the explosion. There were 8 victims killed and over 70 that were severely injured. The Metro- North train that runs on 125th street in Harlem was also effected, all trains were shutdown on this line so that they could clear the debris from the explosion.

All three networks were on the scene of the explosion very quickly and were giving their viewers up to the minute information through out the day. They all were showing footage of the explosion from a birds eye view by use of the choppers. All of the anchors delivered this story with sensitivity and caution to make sure all the facts that they were giving were correct.  Pix 11 news while covering what was happening on the ground it was also warning their viewers to plan for delays on the metro north or to find an alternate route because the trains shut down. This was targeted a more local audience while keeping the viewers updated on the story they were helping their viewer keep up with what they needed to do for the day. Pix 11 showed photos of the buildings before the explosion as well as after so people could see what had happened. NBC News was more factual with their story, they were factual of the event. NBC also spoke to people around the area to get their point of view on what was happening with the explosion. NBC mostly used footage from the explosion along with lower third graphics giving a visual of what was happening in the story. CBS News unlike the other two station talked about the victims of the explosion and showing pictures of victims as well as those that were missing in the rubble until they were found. CBS also collected cell phone video footage from a person at the scene to give another angle to what was happening.