Earth-shaking explosions, panicked escapes, and days of waiting and confusion have become almost routine for John McFadden, a restaurant owner who was setting down his keys and groceries on Saturday when a townhouse a few feet from his apartment window on East 50th Street was flattened by a falling crane.

Just last summer, Mr. McFadden’s restaurant on 42nd Street, Pershing Square, was closed for four days after a steam pipe exploded a block away in a geyser of mud and scalding water.

“You get used to it,” he said. “It’s part of New York City.”

Mr. McFadden, 70, is among 300 residents waiting for word about when they will be able to return to their apartments after the crane fell from a construction site on East 51st Street over the weekend, killing seven people and damaging seven buildings.

Although Mr. McFadden said he was irritated that the city has not given out more information to residents, he has, for better or worse, a little more experience than many of his neighbors in weathering an urban disaster.

After running from his fifth-floor apartment at 311 E. 50th St., directly adjacent to a four-story townhouse that took a direct hit from the huge steel crane, Mr. McFadden said he helped lead away a confused elderly man covered in dust who had been walking his dog. Since then, he has been fielding phone calls from worried neighbors, many of them also elderly, asking him for any news about when they might be able to return home.

“Nobody knows,” Mr. McFadden, who is staying with his wife in a nearby hotel, said. “I have given my phone number to three different city officials.”

At a news conference in Albany yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg did not give a time line for when buildings in the area will be reopened, as emergency workers finished the grim task of digging out the bodies buried in the collapse and turned to removing the leftover debris. Officials have confirmed the deaths of six construction workers and a woman who was visiting from Florida.

They are Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, 54, of Farmingdale; Aaron Stephens, 45, of the Bronx; Anthony Mazza, 39, of Staten Island; Santino Gallone; Clifford Canzona, and Odin Torres, the woman who was the last to be pulled out.

Workers pulled down the largest section of the crane that had been leaning against a 19-story apartment building and sent it to labs for testing to determine the cause of the accident.

Last night, the city’s buildings commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, issued a statement, saying, “Although we have no reason to believe that Saturday’s tragic accident is indicative of a larger problem with similar equipment being used around the city, we will be launching a safety sweep of the approximately 250 tower cranes in use.”

Wearing a green shamrock tie that he was able to retrieve from his apartment during a 15-minute visit residents were permitted on Sunday, Mr. McFadden said he considered himself “very lucky.” In the end, his restaurant suffered only dirty windows after the steam pipe explosion, and except for some water leaking in the basement, his apartment building and its residents escaped Saturday’s accident relatively unscathed.

“I went and bought a lotto ticket after it happened,” Mr. McFadden said.