Parts of New York City go dark after power cut – BBC News
New York City’s West Side went dark on a Saturday night in July, and for five hours the city that never sleeps had to get by on flashlights and traffic cops.
A blackout struck Manhattan’s West Side at roughly 6:47 p.m. EDT on Saturday, July 13, 2019, cutting power to an estimated 73,000 Con Edison customers across a 30-block stretch between Fifth Avenue and the Hudson River. The outage darkened Times Square, silenced Broadway marquees, and knocked out power at Madison Square Garden before crews restored electricity to the entire affected area by midnight.
- The outage hit roughly 73,000 Con Edison customers between Fifth Avenue and the Hudson River, from Midtown up to 72nd Street, and lasted about five hours before full restoration by midnight.
- More than 200 traffic signals went dark and multiple subway lines were suspended or left trapped underground, forcing police and bystanders into intersections to direct traffic by hand.
- The FDNY logged approximately 1,000 emergency calls, about 750 of them for stuck elevators and fire alarms, while a Jennifer Lopez concert at Madison Square Garden was evacuated and Saturday evening Broadway shows were called off.
The Causes of Total Blackouts
Utility officials and city authorities initially traced the failure to an electrical or transformer fire at a Con Edison substation on West 49th Street. From there, the outage spread across a corridor running roughly 30 blocks north-south, swallowing Times Square’s billboards, the theater district, and stretches of the Upper West Side up to 72nd Street. The blackout arrived on an eerie date: exactly 42 years after the infamous citywide blackout of July 13-14, 1977.
Grinding Transit and Traffic to a Halt
With signals dead across the West Side, more than 200 intersections lost their lights, and officers were pulled onto street corners to wave cars through by hand while ordinary New Yorkers pitched in to help direct gridlocked traffic. Subway service took a direct hit too, with multiple lines suspended and some trains left stalled underground as riders waited in the dark for word on when service would resume.
A Night of Stranded Elevators and Cancelled Shows
The FDNY fielded approximately 1,000 emergency calls during the outage, with about 750 of them tied to stuck elevators and triggered fire alarms across high-rises in the blacked-out zone. The disruption reached into the city’s marquee entertainment venues in real time: a Jennifer Lopez concert at Madison Square Garden was evacuated mid-show, and Saturday evening’s Broadway performances were scrapped outright as theaters across the district went dark.
Cuomo’s Response
Governor Andrew Cuomo called the failure “unacceptable” and ordered the state Department of Public Service to investigate what went wrong at the West 49th Street substation. He also credited the public for keeping calm through hours of darkened intersections and stalled trains.
“When things are at their worst, New Yorkers are at their best, and they were at their best tonight.”
Cuomo’s blunt reaction echoed a pattern familiar to anyone who’s watched him handle a crisis in front of cameras, the kind of moment covered in detail among inappropriate things politicians said on live TV and the governor’s own history of candid public remarks, as chronicled in how Andrew Cuomo really wanted to get over Sandra Lee.
Power was fully back across the West Side by midnight, roughly five hours after the substation fire first knocked out the grid, and the Department of Public Service’s investigation into that West 49th Street failure was just getting started.
another NEW Switch
The Real Reason You Never Hear From Blu Cantrell Anymore
The Garage Workshop of my Dreams
Celeb Halloween Costumes That Sparked Major Controversy
The PERFECT Man Around The World