A blackout in parts of Manhattan left around 42,000 customers in the dark Saturday evening in New York, according to Con Edison.
Loss of power is believed to be from a transformer malfunction, a senior fire official and senior New York City Police Department official told NBC New York. The problem is not believed to have been intentional.
The New York City Fire Department said the issue was because of a manhole fire, according to Politico.
“We are working to restore power to 42,000 customers primarily in the Westside of Manhattan,” Con Edison wrote in a Tweet Saturday evening.
We are working to restore power to 42,000 customers primarily in the Westside of Manhattan. We will provide updates as we receive them. Thank you.
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) July 14, 2019
Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat who is in Iowa campaigning for the 2020 presidential election, had been briefed on the situation, according to Politico.
“I’m going to get more information in the next hour or so, and we’ll adjust my schedule accordingly depending on what I hear,” de Blasio told CNN.
Businesses, subways, Broadway shows and more were left in the dark.
WATCH:
Impromptu performance #broadwayblackout @wecomefromaway pic.twitter.com/PfHYZeFJ6v
— Chad Kimball (@chadkimball1) July 14, 2019
The subway system was affected as well across NYC, and there were partial suspensions on certain lines, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority reported. (RELATED: Outage At Website Security Company Takes Out Nearly Half The World’s Internet)
Times Square also went partially dark, and there were reports of people trapped in elevators. Rockefeller Center lost power around 7 p.m. Saturday, NBC New York reported.
#Blackout in Manhattan. Half of Times Square remains on pic.twitter.com/vVW4n308g3
— Natalie Zhang (@nat_zhang) July 13, 2019
Forty-two years ago to the day, millions were left without power in 1977 as a power outage hit New York. There is no estimated time on when power will be restored, Politico reported.
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