Blackout Blame Game

In blasting Con Ed for Saturday night’s blackout, Gov. Cuomo is staying true to form — playing the tough guy. “This is not the first time with Con Ed,” fumed the gov after the five-hour West Side outage. It “does not have a franchise granted by God”; it “could be replaced.”

Mind you, Cuomo loves to bash the utility: He even blamed it for “32,000” subway delays triggered by “power-related issues” over the year leading up to the 2017 Summer of Hell. Of course, he was shifting the blame.

“The MTA doesn’t control the power,” he claimed. “Con Edison does.” In fact, his number was off nearly tenfold: Con Ed sparked just 3,422 delays, a report later showed.

Make no mistake: The utility does look to be responsible for Saturday night’s disaster, and New York deserves answers.

The outage turned out lights (and A/C) for 73,000 customers, trapped thousands in stalled subways and elevators and shut

down a Jennifer Lopez concert, 26 Broadway shows and other events.

Happily, there were no injuries this time, but blackouts always pose huge safety risks. Figuring out what went wrong — and who was at fault — is vital.

Late Monday, Con Ed pinned the cause on a “13,000-volt distribution cable” that “faulted,” and the failure of a “relay protection system” to prevent outages from spreading.

But how did those systems fail? The company is continuing its probe and may not have more specific answers for some time.

Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer are calling for independent probers. Fine: More expert eyeballs can’t hurt — as long as they’re also independent of any political masters. (Cuomo’s appointees tend to take dictation.)

Con Ed, and its regulators, must do everything possible to avoid a repeat of Saturday’s disaster. Step One: Find the actual problem. Step Two: Fix it.