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Con Ed: May Take A Week To Restore Power To 650K+ Customers
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 30, 2012
Modified Oct 30, 2012
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Gabrielle Bush
By
Ben Yakas
Published Oct 30, 2012
Modified Oct 30, 2012
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Over 650K Con Ed customers in NYC and Westchester lost power last night during the Hurricane Sandy storm surge—and it could take up to a week for it to be restored, according to officials. John Miksad, senior vice president of electric operations, told the Journal he couldn't give a definite timetable because the surge had leapfrogged their pre-storm estimates: “Nobody was forecasting that,” he said. “We are in a bit of uncharted territory.”
"This is the largest storm-related outage in our history," he said in a press release, noting that only 200K were out of power during Irene in August 2011. Con Ed says that as of 1 a.m. this morning, there were 193K customers without power in Manhattan, 158K in Westchester, 74K in Queens, 71K in Brooklyn, 76K in Staten Island, and 38K in the Bronx.
However, AP upgrades that number to more than 230K customers without power in Manhattan as of 2 a.m., and note the actual number of people affected is probably higher. Miksad told them he estimated it would take three to four days to restore power cuts in the areas where they preemptively shut off power before the surge, and up to a week for the outages due to the substation explosion. Most of the Manhattan outages happened below 39th Street, after an explosion in a substation at East 14th Street and F.D.R Drive. You can see video of that explosion below.
It's still unclear whether that explosion was caused by flooding or a busted transistor, but it lit up the sky with a blue light after 8 p.m. last night. Reuters also reports that 19 Con Ed worker became trapped in the station after the explosion. There have been several explosions at that station over the last decade that have led to power outages (albeit nothing this wide-reaching), and the city had closed the FDR exit near that substation several years ago due to terrorism fears.
In addition to the outages, there are now reports that some downtown Manhattan residents have no running water either. The mayor's office adds that if you do have water coming from your faucet, it is safe to drink it.
Tagged
con ed
con edison
frankenstorm
hurricane
hurricane sandy
power
storm
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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