Retirement Home Evacuated

NEW YORK (1010 WINS)  -- For the second time this week power losses forced resident of the Atria Riverdale Retirement Home to evacuate. The 12 story building, located on the Henry Hudson Parkway at 238th Street, had to be evacuated on Thursday after it's power was reduced leaving more than 150 elderly residents without air conditioning.

Power outages were reported citywide, with nearly 300 elevators in housing projects affected, authorities said. Con Edison reported a total of 2784 outages in the five boroughs, Staten Island and Westchester as temperatures soared on Thursday.

The sweltering weather claimed at least two lives as a third straight day of near-record temperatures led to scattered power outages Thursday, knocking out electricity to the medical examiner's office and elevators across the city.

Although forecasters said that relief was just a thunderstorm away, there was no sign of any respite as temperatures again soared near 100 degrees.

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The first fatality of the heat wave was found in Brooklyn, possibly linked to alcohol consumption, and other deaths were under investigation to determine if the weather was a cause, city health officials said.

In Hempstead, on Long Island, three elderly people were found unconscious in a private home with no air conditioning. An
83-year-old woman was pronounced dead of heat exhaustion, while an 86-year-old man and a 101-year-old woman were taken to a hospital and were expected to recover, police said.

Power outages were reported citywide, with nearly 300 elevators in housing projects affected, authorities said.

The worst power problems Thursday were on the East Side of Manhattan, where four feeder cable went out, causing a manhole explosion that knocked out power to the medical examiner's office. The nearby Port Authority was forced to relocate workers across the Hudson River, and local businesses struggled to overcome random outages.

Some, like the Waterfront Ale House on Second Avenue, just threw in the bar towel for the day. "Closed today,'' read a sign in its window. "Thanks, Con Ed.''

Relief was in sight, however: A cold front was expected to bring thundershowers and gradually cooler temperatures by Friday morning. The humidity was expected to drop gradually, making for a "noticed difference by late afternoon'' on Friday, said meteorologist Tim Morrin.

That offered little consolation to the 80 apartments in a 15-story building at 250 E. 30th St. Residents woke Thursday to find their refrigerators off and their elevators shut down due to an outage. At Todaro Bros., a specialty food store in the neighborhood, the dwindling power illuminated just a few of the refrigeration cases.

"We have everything on ice, and we've sealed up the refrigerators to maintain,'' said manager Mike Spano. ``But there are going to be losses.''

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey relocated its Manhattan headquarters to Jersey City, N.J., after utility Consolidated Edison warned of a possible power outage, said agency spokesman Steve Coleman. The air conditioning in the Union Square offices was turned off by midday, although the lights remained on, Coleman said.

Nonessential employees at the medical examiner's office were sent home because of a manhole explosion that knocked out all power there around 7:30 a.m., said spokeswoman Ellen Borakove. A generator was cooling the morgue, and all scheduled Manhattan autopsies were instead performed in Queens, she said.

``We're adapting to whatever,'' said Borakove, adding that partial power returned Thursday afternoon. ``Everything is working well, considering what happened.''

On Wednesday, the city Emergency Medical Service had the sixth busiest day in its history, responding to 4,063 calls. There were 425,000 people at the city beaches, and water consumption increased by 300 million gallons, said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

For the homeless, the heat wave coincided with the arrival of disability and Social Security checks. Many homeless people use those dollars to temporarily escape the streets, particularly in harsh weather, often staying at low-cost motels or rooms for a couple of days, said Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for the Coalition for the Homeless.

By early Wednesday afternoon, the temperature in Central Park hit 95 degrees for the third straight day. At LaGuardia Airport, where the mercury broke 100 the last two days, the temperature was at 99 degrees, two degrees higher than the temperature on the West Fourth Street subway platform seemed normal.

Energy saving measures were imposed at LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy International and Newark Liberty airports. City Hall was operating on a generator, and New York institutions from Carnegie Hall to the Bronx Zoo were also joining in the effort to conserve power.

Con Edison and the Long Island Power Authority were setting records for peak electricity demand.

About 2,500 Con Ed customers, roughly 10,000 people, were without power in and around New York City by Thursday afternoon. On Long Island, LIPA had a little more than 7,000 people without power.

While Con Ed worked to keep power up and running in this heat wave, the company was still on the hot seat for the 10-day blackout last month that left 100,000 northwest Queens residents in the dark during summer's dog days.

At a hearing Thursday in Queens, Con Ed chairman Kevin Burke answered hours of questions from state Assembly members. He said the company has already sent out 4,000 checks to customers seeking reimbursement for lost goods, and that there would be a one-time, one-month credit of $3 for residential customers, $6 for small businesses and $250 for large commercial customers, approved Thursday by the state Public Service Commission at the request of Con Ed.

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Photos Taken by 1010 WINS Reporter Steve Kastenbaum