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How Long Is Queens Going To Be In The Dark?


By

Garth Johnston

Published Jul 23, 2006

Modified Mar 7, 2008


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By

Garth Johnston

Published Jul 23, 2006

Modified Mar 7, 2008


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2006_07_23_astorialinesup.jpg

How many ways can we write that power has still not been restored in Queens? Cause it still hasn't. What else can we say? The papers are having a good time with this one, what journalist wouldn't love to write a story about a hair salon in Astoria that can't do a blowout? But good news stories doesn't bring the power back on, and neither, it seems, do all the mayor's horses and all the mayor's men.

At least we're getting closer to an actual explanation as to what happened. Closer, but not there yet. In his first public interview since the blackout started on Monday ConEd chief Kevin Burke offered up an explanation of sorts:

He said that 10 of the area’s 22 network feeder cables — each carrying 27,000 volts of electricity to neighborhood transformers, which step it down to 120 volts for household use and pass it along through secondary lines branching out to homes and businesses — went down in an unprecedented series of failures whose cause remains unknown.

“It was really a very extraordinary event, something that I’ve never seen before,” Mr. Burke said of the failure.

Isn't that helpful of him? In the meantime there is still no timetable as to when the power will return and some people have reported getting their power back and going shopping for food only to wake up in the morning to have their power off again! Darn storms. We wonder though, can you make two sets of claims to ConEd for lost money if your power came back and then went off again? And how could they tell if you were telling the truth if they are literally driving down the street in order to figure out who doesn't and does have power? We'll keep you updated as more information slowly trickles out of this ridiculous situation.

The Red Cross Truck by Dan Dickinson via Contribute.

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