Queens Blackout, Day 8: Power Slowly Returning, Emotions Running Non-stop

After a week of being powerless or near powerless, thousands of Queens homes and businesses are starting to power back up, but it almost feels like too little, too late. It's already been a week of no food, no hot water and no business for many people, and one family blames the death of a 60 year old father on the blackout. Politicians are also fuming: They want Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke to resign, pissed that Burke minimized the blackout as an "inconvenience," and for Governor Pataki to designate Queens a disaster area. Representative Joseph Crowley said during a press conference, "If this were an area of 100,000 people in upstate New York, the governor would have declared it a disaster area." No kidding.

Con Ed now says that only 3,000 customers remain without power (is that customers as in "discrete residents" or customers as in "buildings with many residents") and that Con Ed workers, along with contractors from other power companies, are on the scene:

One thousand Con Edison employees and contractors are working in the Long Island City network to bring the lights back on to residents and businesses in these communities. As service is being restored, residents in northwest Queens will see 39 generators, and miles of wires on the street. Equipment that normally would be underground will be on the street. That equipment is insulated, safe, and will be protected.

The network of cables, transformers, and other equipment in the affected area has sustained major damage, and most of it must be rebuilt. Much of the work that was done this weekend was temporary to get power to as many homes and businesses as quickly and safely as possible. Once temporary repairs have been made to restore service, Con Edison will focus on making permanent repairs.

The company is asking customers in the affected communities to continue to conserve electricity even when their power is restored because of extensive damage to wires and cables.

So, over the next week (weeks?), expect lots of manhole fires as Con Ed tries to rewire everything. And we were reading the Times article today which says, "Con Edison has pledged to reimburse residents up to $7,000 for spoiled food and other damages, and the city has promised to assist small businesses affected." Does that mean the $350 reimbursement for damages has been lifted to $7,000? Doesn't seem that way yet, according to the Con Ed claims site.

Top photograph from Tina Fineberg/AP; bottom photograph from jasoneppink on Flickr

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on July 24, 2006 11:08 AM

Comments [rss]

nerd candy

We all know the "prepared" guys are nerds.

C'mon, boy scout?? NERD and perv if you're over 30 and a scout leader.

If you're one of the prepared guys, I would keep that fact hidden until needed. Till then don't show off your nerd stuff like that $200 flashlight.

anonymous

I agree somewhat with Kojak, but I don't think this is the right time to put forth the idea. It's kind of like blaming the smoker in the family during the funeral of one of the relatives who dies of lung cancer. There will be plenty of time for that later, but for now, how about we give it a rest?

laura

What a nightmare.

Thank god no reports of looting.

Kojak

Since when did I start to side with the notion of the survival of the fittest and fuck the rest of them? I’ve only mentioned a few precautions people can take in case emergency services couldn’t do a sufficient job. The tents, MRE’s and stoves are just stuff I have from past trips but they do come in handy in a time like this. People can certainly keep some basic items on the side in case of a blackout or some other event.

Like it or not, there may be times when the Red Cross, police, etc may be overwhelmed and unable to provide assistance to the people who are most vulnerable for whatever reason. I have never been 100% confident in the ability of government to protect its citizens from any disaster. So what do you do? Bitch about it? nag? Complain? Yeah sure. Why not… but that won’t help solve the problem in the short term. In the meantime at least keep some essentials handy and watch your neighbors if they are in need.

Is that so unreasonable?

dikfore

Kojak, I gotta say you are a shortsighted dillweed. If you're a youngish person in reasonable health, then of course all you need is to snuggle up with a secondhand copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and an MRE or two. But if you're older, disabled, maybe poor with a couple babies, it's tough to deal with the heat and lack of water during a blackout. It's tough to maneuver around your own apartment in the dark when you're old or infirm. Biological fact: Elderly folks and infants cannot deal effectively with heat, and it can easily kill them. It's not a matter of sucking it up and toughing it out. People die from the heat.

And if you're an average working-class Joe (ie, most people), maybe you don't have a lot of expendable cash to put together an emergency kit for "just in case."

Think outside your own box. Not everyone is as resourceful or idealistic as you, and that doesn't make them weak or inferior.

anonymass

The lot of you should band together and just not pay ConEd with threats of class action lawsuits. Your reimbursement for lost food and inconvenience should be 3 months of free electricity - "free" meaning the average of your previous 3 months' utility bills x 3.

As for these wacko survivalists, you all belong in fucking Montana or something. *You* are the ones who need to get the fuck out. People come to NYC specifically NOT to live off of MREs (no matter how delectable they may be).

dumbokrat

What rambo McGunny says is don't blame con ed for your unpreparedness. then will insert some political crap about how we are a welfare state. yada yada yada.

bunch of nutcases if you ask me, like those flashlight lovers. they need it to find their cock in the dark. nerds, what can you say?

ed's ex gay lover

All you 'prepared' people.

Tell that to your girlfriends/wives/daughters after some nutcase rapes them.

Cuz it's always the victims fault right?

Radical self reliance is nice, but there's a lot of old people out there who are just too weak/old/tired to be expected to fend for themselves in this shit.

grin

Don't like it?! Well this is NYC, a sh$thole overfilled with masses. You don't like it? Get the f out of there and move somewhere else. If you think that its not for you, then stay and STFU.

whytwokay man

Am I prepared for TEOTWAWKI?

yes, but could always be better prepared. (all you really need is a gun, to be honest, wink)

Anyway, I suggest the people with cars get an inverter so they could at least get some things going. A fan, at least. An idling car does not use that much gas, sure it's polluting but you gotta set your priorities.

Help neighbors out by charging their phones and if you're real nice get a long extension cord.

Stay strong Queens residents. Fight the power.

Anya

It is not even 350 but *150* for individual residents. The 350 is only for people who can prove item by item (with receipts, photos of "clearly visible" price tags, and photos of each example of spoilage) the specific items that spoiled.

Even if you have saved all your grocery receipts (and I don't)... even if you somehow knew to take photos of each individual item's "evidence" of spoilage rather than throwing out those nasty items... if you don't own a digital camera and have to pay for film/developing, that is even more ridiculous.

Even if the power comes back tomorrow (it's not coming back tomorrow), that is $17 a day for no power, no way to shower or clean anything, no fridge, no cell phone, no way to cook, no answers or public information -- PLUS hundreds of dollars of spoiled food.

Kojak

Don't knock MRE's. Most taste pretty good when cooked properly.

I can live if the power goes out in my area. Bring it on! I'd make even MacGyver proud.

manhole fire blogger

Hey, I wrote about the manhole fires that this article links to. We still don't have any electricity. I just wanna say that my neighbors are a bunch of good natured troopers. They got complaints of course, but they're not livid, even when we were watching the explosions on Saturday night. I think that's pretty cool. If I had to choose a place to inconvenience for at least a week, without getting into too much trouble with anyone with power (teehee, pun), then I'd probably pick Astoria. Just sayin'. (And obviously we don't know if anyone had a "choice" about who to black-out.)

kojak's ugly mother

I am hoping that Kojak's apartment gets blacked out for 10 weeks. Wouldn't that be funny?

Then he could tell us all about his MRE nibblings.

Kojak

"I have a sinking feeling that incidents like this are going to be very commonplace in the US from now on."

It really doesn’t have to be. We just need to invest more into our electrical infrastructure, produce more efficient Air Conditioning systems (Since high use of AC’s is a big part of the problem) and other high energy appliances.

Charles

Kojak, please go back to San Francisco.

And the same thing is happening in Saint Louis right now on a larger scale. I have a sinking feeling that incidents like this are going to be very commonplace in the US from now on.

ed_Extinct

9/11 SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR FIRST INCLINATION TO PREPARE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FOR "WAR".

This is the main-stage problem in this great nation... "it'll never happen to me/us". Well it did and NEW YORK CITY and the STATE, for 5 long years, have been trying to grill it onto your brain.

BE PREPARED.

While much of the blame probably goes to Con Edison for this electrical outage, I also blame every consumer with no PLAN. Does someone hold your hand on every little element in your life? GET PREPARED, it's as simple as that, stop blaming the world around you for everything.

this was no SHTF situation

This was NOT a SHTF event.

Being prepared would of helped, of course.

PEOPLE STILL needed to get to work the next morning, so life still went on.

I'd rather walk to work and come back to a home with electricity than to use the limited Subway to get to work and come back to an oven with no electricity.

Margo

Unfortunately, the residents of Queens were not preparing for a trip to Burningman, so this checklist is a bit unrealistic. NOW, though, that folks know how much the City has failed them, they WILL be more prepared in the future.

Kojak

There are some portable showers that work pretty well as long as you hang the water bag on top of something. Other then that, I'm sure by now there are porta-potties outside.

I’m just saying if shit hits the fan, there are always options. Sometimes the only person you can count on in these situations is not Con-Ed or the city government, but yourself.