Power surge sparks NYC subway outage
NEW YORK – A “sequence of failures” in New York City’s subway system after a brief power outage disrupted half of the system for several hours and stranded hundreds of passengers, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday.
Hochul said in a statement that a Metropolitan Transportation Authority review of Sunday night’s subway breakdown “uncovered a sequence of failures that resulted in some backup systems not providing power as designed last night, including an additional failure to quickly diagnose the underlying cause.”
The unprecedented breakdown affected more than 80 trains on the subway system’s numbered lines plus the L train from shortly after 9 .m. Sunday to about 1:30 a.m. Monday, Hochul said at an earlier news conference.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a virtual news briefing that city agencies were working with the state and the MTA to investigate the disruption. “We’ve got to figure out why this happened and make sure it does not happen again,” de Blasio said.
Hochul said subway service was back to normal for the Monday morning commute.