NYC in the dark over power outage
NEW YORK — A Manhattan power outage that temporarily turned off the bright lights of the big city only lasted for a few hours, but it left plenty of lingering questions and calls for investigations Sunday.
Con Ed President Tim Cawley insisted the Saturday night blackout that darkened more than 40 blocks of Manhattan, including Times Square, wasn’t due to high demand on the electrical grid, but he said it would take some time to determine what exactly did happen.
“We think the grid is sound,” Cawley said Sunday, adding, “If there are lessons we can apply, we will.”
He said the system was prepared to deal with high demand, like that expected this coming week as temperatures rise.
Officials definitively ruled out either cyber- or physical acts of terrorism of any kind.
Thousands of people crowded the streets Saturday evening, using their cellphones as flashlights while they tried to stay cool amid the humid July evening, where temperatures hit the low 80s.
In the theater district, marquees darkened just before evening performances were set to begin. Most Broadway musicals and plays canceled their Saturday evening shows, though some cast members staged impromptu performances in the street.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday that the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity should investigate the work being done by Con Edison to maintain and upgrade the city’s power grid.
He added that “this type of massive blackout is entirely preventable with the right investments in our grid.”
Gregory Reed, a professor of electric power engineering at the University of Pittsburgh who once worked at Con Ed, said the utility had done a good job in restoring power quickly, but he said the matter underscores a need throughout the country to invest more in infrastructure.
“We have a lot of networks that have aging infrastructure and antiquated systems,” he said. “We have to build higher levels of resiliency.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio both said they would be directing agencies under their control to look into what happened.
The outage, which stymied subway service throughout the city, affecting nearly every line, came on the anniversary of the 1977 New York City outage that left most of the city without power.