Widespread power outages have been reported in New York City Saturday night, mainly affecting the Upper West Side and Midtown neighborhoods.
Power utility ConEdison reported that tens of thousands of people were without power, and many subways have gone dark. A number of movie theaters and subways were evacuated for people’s safety and a number of people were reported trapped in elevators.
Even parts of New York’s famed Times Square billboards have gone dark.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is not in the city as he is on the campaign trail in Iowa, says he is keeping up to date on the blackouts.
“I spoke to our police commissioner, our emergency management commissioner, my Chief of Staff at city hall. Everyone is coordinating. We’ll have a better picture in the next few minutes or next half hour or so. But all of our emergency personnel are being deployed to address the situation. It appears a limited power outage, but still affecting a meaningful number of people,” de Blasio said in a statement.
.@NYCEmergencyMgt is working with the NYPD, FDNY and city agencies to respond to power outages in Manhattan due to a manhole fire earlier this evening. Disruption is significant.
We’ll have further updates soon — please follow @NotifyNYC.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) July 14, 2019
The mayor later tweeted that a manhole fire was believed to be the cause of the outages.
The blackout comes on the 42nd anniversary of the New York City Blackout of 1977, where most of the city completely lost power for 25 hours.
A number of cable news networks pre-empted programming to cover the ongoing blackouts.
ConEdison later stated that power was being restored and a majority of customers would have power back by midnight.
Power is being restored on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and we’re estimating most customers will be restored at midnight.
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) July 14, 2019
Watch above, via CNN.
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