NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg went to Queens tonight and says he's satisfied that Con Edison is working hard to fix the problem that's left thousands of residents of northwest Queens without power -- and steaming mad.
The mayor was briefed in Astoria by city officials. He told reporters that Con Ed workers would be going building by building to check current -- and that most customers would have the lights back on by Saturday, with the last customers back on line by Sunday.
Bloomberg has demanded that Con Ed investigate the outages and deliver a report on their cause within two weeks.
Residents in northwest Queens endured their fourth straight day without electrical power today. Nearly 2-thousand customers are in the dark and thousands more are with limited voltage. It's unclear how many people are affected because a utility customer could be a single-family home -- or a large apartment building.
Con Ed spokesman Chris Olert said the company is making every effort to get the system running, but couldn't estimate when that might happen. He also said the company still didn't know why things went so wrong.
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1010 WINS AUDIO: Lori Madden Interviews Con Ed Spokesman
A statement posted on the Con Ed Web site urges customers in Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside, Hunters Point and Astoria to discontinue use of non-essential electrical appliances. You can read the Con Ed statement here.
Con Ed distributed some bags of ice to neighbors on Thursday afternoon at the corner of Steinway Street and Ditmars Boulevard.
The mysterious electrical problem that swept through northwest Queens this week persisted for the fourth straight day Thursday, leaving nearly 2,000 customers powerless and thousands more with limited voltage.
The blackouts have been occurring since Monday evening in a handful of neighborhoods and have taken place over a span that included two of the hottest days of the year. The problems were at their worst Wednesday, when 10 of the 22 feeder cables that supply the area with power were down simultaneously. Things improved on Thursday, though not quickly enough for many.
Subway service to Queens was restored to near normal levels by 4:45 a.m., a day after the number of trains was cut sharply because of inadequate power to the system's signal network. LaGuardia Airport was back to normal after experiencing flight cancellations for most of Tuesday because of blackouts in two terminals.
Still, hundreds of businesses sat idle. Restaurants threw away spoiled food. The city's jail complex on Rikers Island operated on backup generators. Thousands of homes had enough electricity for lights but too little voltage to run some appliances.
"This is outrageous,'' said City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr. ``When is this going to be fixed? If it's going to be days, they should tell people it is going to be days.''
It was unclear how many people were affected because a utility customer could be a single-family home or a big apartment building. Consolidated Edison spokesman Chris Olert said the power company was making every effort to get the system running but couldn't estimate when that might happen. He also said the company still didn't know why things went so wrong.
Photo above was taken by 1010 WINS reporter Juliet Papa.
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