Results tagged “poweroutage”

Yesterday's fair amount of chaos across the city, from power outages to downed trees, from toppled Sukkot structures to bricks falling off buildings and the city closing down streets to deal with them. Some other stats and stories:

The afternoon thunderstorms, which turned the sky above some parts of the city pitch black, have wreaked a bit of havoc: Not only was there flooding that closed certain Staten Island streets, over a thousand Con Ed customers on Staten Island are without power (before, the outage hit 2,500 customers). As for the mass transit commute, PATH service between the World Trade Center and Newark is suspended as is service between Newark and Journal Square, due to signal problems (according to the PATH, "Passengers in New York can take NJ Transit at Penn Station New York. Passengers in Newark Penn Station can take NJ Transit into New York Penn Station NJ Transit is cross honoring"). And for a little more weather fun, check out this video of a funnel cloud; it was taken in Wantage, NJ (according to Wiki, "If a funnel cloud touches the ground it becomes a tornado).

Last night, heavy storms and hail hit Westchester County, downing trees and utility poles and causing power outages to 17,000 customers. The downed power lines also prompted car fires. A Yonkers Fire Department official told 1010WINS, "Possibly a tornado came through the city...the northwest section...it was just devastating...trees and wires down...the amount of hail was unbelievable." (Reports of a tornado are still being confirmed.) WCBS 2 reports, "The dime-sized hail covered the roads in many areas across the city, posing as snow in July... The bizzare weather scene will most certainly cause problems for Wednesday's commute." According to Con Ed, Yonkers and Mount Vernon suffered the most outages while Bronxville, New Rochelle and Eastchester were also affected. Service may not be restored until later this afternoon. According to USA Today, "Hail forms when strong currents of rising air, known as updrafts, carry water droplets high enough in a thunderstorm for the water droplets to freeze... While hailstones are ice, hail is mostly a spring and summer phenomena because the strong thunderstorms needed to produce hail are much more common during warm weather."

Co-Op City, the massive co-op housing development (reportedly the largest in the world) in the Bronx, lost power over night. Con Ed says power was out at eight building and has been restored to six of them, and the other two buildings, per WCBS 880, "are being worked on and won't be back on until Saturday morning." Initially there was a fire, but that has been put out. Con Ed would also like you to know that they didn't cause it--apparently Co-Op City maintenance workers had been working on feeders, one of which tripped and cause the outage. WNBC reports that "there may be power in public areas, but not in apartments." People had been stuck in elevators and the FDNY was able to remove them. No injuries have been reported.

Two elevators inside the Empire State Building stopped working last night when construction workers accidentally cut power lines. Over five hundred tourists were stranded on the observation deck while more than a dozen were stuck in an elevator near the 80th floor for over an hour. Two women were injured when, witnesses said, they had to jump off the stuck lifts about a foot to the floor. Both were taken to the hospital.

By last night, power was restored to most customers in Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Borough Park and Park Slope who were hit by outages. All residents in those neighborhoods were asked to conserve energy by not using air-conditioners and other power-sucking appliances as "4 of the 12 big feeders...malfunctioned," due to "overheating or overloading." Con Ed worked throughout yesterday to return power to all but a few residential and commercial customers were still without power overnight. While Brooklyn residents can go back to using their AC, etc., here are tips on conserving energy (and saving money!).

Con Ed is asking residents in some parts of Brooklyn to stop using "non-essential appliances" (including air-conditioning) because of power line issues. The issues have left around 2,000 customers--and keep in mind a customer can be an entire apartment building--without power in Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Borough Park, and Park Slope.

     

Con Ed has been working to restore power to customers in Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester County who are still without power after last night's storms (thousands were without power all over the region, served by various utilities). And recently, Con Ed has been sharing a website that maps power outages with the public.

The heat is on all across the Eastern Seaboard, and temperatures in New York City reached 96 degrees yesterday (just missing a record)--and it felt like even more with its densely-packed buildings and people. There were scattered power outages: Outages for 1,400 customers were reported by Con Ed, 788 by Long Island Power Authority (which had thousands on Monday), and 75,700 by PSE&G in NJ's Essex County.

Yesterday afternoon, a few manhole fires caused a load of problems for Brooklyn residents in the middle of a sweltering weekend.

Yesterday's windy weather has at least one casualty: According to WNBC, power lines in NJ. Jersey Central Power & Light's commercial power lines "fell across the tracks in Montville," prompting the Montclair-Boonton line to be closed for a while. The line is open again, but this means one-hour delays for the Northeast Corridor, NJ Coast and Raritan Valley lines. NJ Transit and Lakeland buses are honoring rail tickets.

Although the city was mostly spared, wind and rain caused quite a mess across the metro area last night. About twenty thousand homes lost power, including 900 in Queens and 300 in the Bronx.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Cranford St. and Amboy Rd. on Staten Island, a bank robbery on East Gun Hill Rd. in the Bronx, and a carjacking on the Horace Harding Expressway and 108th St. in Queens.
• Update on the 14-year-old girl who was killed and stuffed into a boiler by her father: The ME's office found that she was pregnant - and they are testing the DNA to see if her father impregnated her.
• For those who read Maxim for the articles and believe in the lad mag's editorial integrity, it apparently published an album review of the new Black Crowes' release without listening to it. Maxim later explained it was an "educated guess preview."
• Subway delays are up by 31% from a year ago and are at 154% the level of delays in 2005. Capital improvements are being singled out as the cause of the dramatic increases.
• West Village speakeasy Chumley's may not be lost to the ages after all. Construction begins Monday and the owner hopes to reopen in May.
• A corner townhouse that has 100 feet of Park Avenue frontage may be undesirable because of its design. Or its $30-35 million price tag.
• Gossipmonger Baird Jones was discovered dead in his East 8th St. apartment yesterday evening. The 53-year-old purveyor of celebrity tidbits to multiple gossip columns reportedly died from natural causes.
• A Dallas police officer in Sen. Hillary Clinton's motorcade was killed in a crash today.
• Yesterday marked the 43rd anniversary of Malcolm X's assassination at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.
• And get your Cosmopolitans ready: There's a new Sex & the City trailer that drops some big bombshells and a good joke about feminine grooming.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on East 169th St. and Franklin Ave. in the Bronx, an aircraft emergency at Laguardia in Queens, and a power outage on Laconia Ave. in the Bronx.
• The suit about seizing private property for another private owner in the name of public gain will move to the Supreme Court after a 3-judge panel ruled that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards eminent domain actions were O.K. with them.
• Some subway graffiti suggesting who the real Cloverfield monster is.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Beach Channel Dr. in Queens, a shooting on Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, and a car in the water at Rockaway and Brookville Blvds. in Queens.
• If you think you're buying a super-cheap iPod at a Mom and Pop electronics store, you're probably buying a fake.
• Some Queens residents will be relieved to know that LIRR trains will no longer blast their horns for 15 to 20 seconds as they approach the crossing at the Little Neck Parkway. About 80 trains pass there every day.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Country Club Rd. in the Bronx, an abduction on 89th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Decatur St. in Brooklyn.
• A buyer spent $54,000 to purchase a bottle of 60-year-old Macallan scotch at auction, bottled in 1926.
• Police responding to an accident call in Washington Heights were themselves the victims of a hit-and-run, when rear-ended by a speeding sedan. The driver of the car that rammed them from behind abandoned his car and took off running on foot.
• A gang of thieves linked to the rapper Fabolous have been robbing people at night time hotspots. The more famous the victim, the more conspicuous the target.
• Broadway stagehands voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new contract.
• Forget menorahs, nativity scenes, and trees; Hindus have brought the Himalaya mountains to Queens.
• Chelsea Clinton's out in public, but not being recognized because she's not the gawky kid everyone knows.
• Madison Square Garden has taken to blasting music in an attempt to drown out hometown fans' booing.

Earlier this afternoon, an A/C power outage along the 7 line caused service to stop in both directions. Apparently one of the signals went out at 1:35PM, and the MTA wasn't completely sure when it would be fixed. Other parts of the 7 came back and now, thankfully, 7 service is back and running in time for the rush hour.

Thirty years ago tonight, New York City lost electricity when a Con Ed substation was hit by lightning strikes and a "cascading effect" caused the system to shut down around 9PM. And NYC, as well as parts of Westchester County, were powerless for over a day in the sweltering heart of the summer. Subways were stuck, mobs set fires and stores were looted.

Wednesday power woes weren't just for parts of the Bronx and Manhattan: Over 4,000 (or 8,000, depending on what you read) Queens residents were without power when last night's storm made its presence known. In fact, two hours after the MTA said LIRR service was a-okay after the Bronx-Manhattan power outage, the rain screwed up Long Island Rail Road track signals, causing hours of delays after service was suspended. In this instance, we feel bad for the MTA: You can't count on Con Ed or Mother Nature.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Elliot Ave. in Queens, a pedestrian struck on West 86th St. and Amsterdam Ave. in Manhattan, and a stabbing on Cozine Ave. in Brooklyn.
• The brother of murdered Councilman James Davis decried the threats of assassination against another councilman from Charles Barron's chief of staff.
• A man robbed a sunbathing woman in Central Park of her iPod and wallet, then also demanded a kiss before departing.
• The Times looks at a New York multi-millionaire who's shelling out a lot of cash for stimulating dinner conversation.
• After leaving office Mayor Bloomberg will 1) Attend his successor's inauguration 2) Go visit his Mom 3) Play a week's worth of golf.
• Council Speaker Christine Quinn wants to limit the amount of money individuals and organizations doing business with the city can give to politicians.
• Summer is officially upon us as New York experiences its first power outage of the season.
• New York magazine has a piece on where New York's top chefs shop for their food.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Beach Channel Drive in Queens, a shooting on Hale Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting at East 157th St. and Cortland Ave. in the Bronx.
• The Gowanus Lounge has a post on the giant inflatable water slide that Thor Equities intends to erect at Coney Island. The slide manufacturer's web site advertises that when it comes to entertaining children "size does matter," so good luck explaining what the heck that means when you bring your kids.
• Seattle transplant Tricia Romano ends her run covering NYC's rhythm and flow for the Village Voice's "Fly Life" column. In a male-dominated scene, she was a rare distaff voice and we wish her luck on future endeavors, like writing features for the paper.
• Giuliani was heckled by activists at his birthday fundraiser, demanding to know more about his knowledge of the Twin Towers' collapse.
• A homeless panhandler has urged his court appointed lawyer to file a First Amendment suit after being arrested for begging in public and then reading about a similar case in the paper. The Times doesn't specify, but we suspect it might be the case of the panhandler who sued the city for $100,000 and won.
• Several Inwood, Manhattan high school students were injured when a car ran over a bottle of Drano, splashing them with its contents.
• It's getting down to brass tacks time in the wrongful death lawsuit centered around the killing of Malcolm Ferguson by a member of the NYPD seven years ago.
• Venerable talk show host Joe Franklin wants New Yorkers to help identify the cab that ran him down at 35th St. and 8th Ave. earlier this month.

Yesterday's thunderstorm left its mark around the area. Just under 2,000 homes were without power in the five boroughs (though, given Con Ed's counting, that could be many times more) while thousands of homes in Westchester, New Jersey and Connecticut were also powerless. About an inch of rain fell in Central Park.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A shooting in Brooklyn, a power outage in Queens, and scaffolding that fell on the 5 tracks - subway service on the 2 and 5 is messed up!
• A Bronx man pleaded guilty to terror plotting; Tarik Shah will serve no more than 15 years for offering to teach Al Qaeda operatives "how to wage jihad with hand-to-hand combat"
• New lawsuit to stop the Atlantic Yards lawsuit, on the grounds that the Pataki administration's Environmental Impact Statement was "fatally flawed"
• A man stabbed his father while in an SUV in Midtown last night; his mother watched from the backseat
• Brooklyn Record looked at the Williamsburg jeans from the Gap, but it's questionable how Williamsburg they really are
• The Police Academy will move out of its gross East 20th Street digs to College Point, Queens, where the College Point auto pound currently resides
• The missing British teen who ran - and flew - away to NYC after an argument with his parents was found at JFK; we're intrigued how he had enough money of his own to buy a ticket (credit card, probably?)
• Gridskipper lists the top sake bars in the city; old standbys Decibel and Angel Share make it
• The pet food recall now includes dog biscuits
• And, finally, Community Board 4 approved renaming the west side of 53rd and 8th Avenue "Jerry Orbach Way"
Continue reading "Extra, Extra"

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A power outage in Beach Channel, Queens, a jumper on the George Washington Bridge, and a pedestrian struck near Tottenville High School on Staten Island
• It's damn cold, but you should be warm(ish) at home; building owners are required to provide heat and hot water during "heat season"
• The doctor who claimed he had been attacked by a group of thugs died and the medical examiner isn't sure how he died; earlier hypotheses included a gay encounter gone wrong and, the current one, that he may have scalded himself

On May 25, 2006, there was a power outage along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line, a heavily traveled route that stranded over a hundred trains from Amtrak, NJ Transit and other transit companies. Now, nine months later, Amtrak has revealed what went wrong - and it's a doozy. The NY Times reports:

A 4-year-old computer in Philadelphia failed to execute a single command given 36 hours earlier, after maintenance had been done on the evening of May 23, and then failed to alert human controllers that it had not followed instructions, according to an extensive investigation performed by outside experts. The effect was to limit the amount of power available in the system, leaving no margin during periods of peak demand.

Continue reading "2006 Amtrak Outage Blamed On 4-Year-Old Computer"

Last year ended much as it began -warm, warm, warm. Last month was the third warmest December since records began in 1869. The average temperature in Central Park last year was 56.8 degrees, making 2006 the sixth warmest year on record. Seven of the city's ten warmest years have occurred since 1990.

With the weather turning quite brisk today, it's almost hard to remember that back in stifling July heat, many neighborhoods were without power for days and days. Almost. Yesterday, Con Ed released a 600 page report detailing what happened, why they decided not to shut down the network, and why trying to fix the problem caused delays. All in all, Con Ed is saying it wasn't really their fault - it was the equipment! Please, Con Ed needed 600 pages to come up with that excuse? Anyway, the NY Times summarizes what Con Ed says happened:

According to the report, three unrelated events on July 17 combined to knock out five feeders. The first event was a fire, around 3:50 p.m., that broke out in an underground conduit near 30th Avenue and 44th Street when a low-voltage secondary cable short-circuited. The fire damaged two of the primary feeders, causing both of them to fail in a 32-minute period. More than two hours later, at 6:48 p.m., a third feeder failed.

Continue reading "Con Ed Blames Queens Blackout on Eqiupment, Not Itself"

The Office of Emergency Management has decided to stop relying on Con Ed-supplied information on power outages, after the July Queens blackout mess that affected about 300,000. OEM Commissioner Joseph Bruno said that the fact that Con Ed said only 1700 customers were without power on July 20, later raising it to 25,000 customers (and customers equal entire buildings, with indeterminate number of people in them), was cause for the city to start sending canvassers on the street to get better estimates. The "Power Outage Response Team" will be made up of NYPD, FDNY, and other city officials. Comissioner Bruno said, "We have never seen Con Ed be off by a factor of 10, as we’ve seen here... We are no longer accepting those [Con Ed] numbers as we had for years."

-- Some late breaking news: our sources at the Bronx Zoo are reporting a power outage. So if you're in the Bronx tonight, watch out-- bears get really ornery when they can't watch their evening television!

Yesterday was the third day of the August heat wave, but the sprinkling of rain in the early evening and cooler weather today and the weekend should hopefully bring relief to us all. And it looks like Con Ed managed to avoid a bigger blackout when feeder cables on the East Side failed and manholes exploded in the area as well; of course, Con Ed sending its own non-essential employees home certainly freaked everyone out! Bigger institutions, from hospitals to universities and performing venues - even the Bronx Zoo - switched to generators for power in order to conserve energy. However, some areas, such as in the Bronx, have been without power for days. Mayor Bloomberg is asking us to continue to conserve energy.