The New York City Fire Department was on the scene in upper Manhattan on Saturday night as widespread power outages were reported in New York City in the wake of a manhole or transformer fire earlier in the evening.
“Stay calm and know that help is on the way,” said Bill Stanton, a safety security expert, to Fox News on Saturday evening, sharing advice for those who might have been in need of assistance in their apartment buildings, at their places of work, or while below ground in subway stations or passageways.
The cast of “Waitress” on Broadway — determined to keep things going — actually took the remainder of its show out onto the street, as did the casts of other shows. Some venues simply told visitors to exit the buildings immediately.
More on the blackout:
• No word yet on when power will be restored
• The Fire Department has “numerous” reports of people stuck in elevators
• The M.T.A. encouraged riders in Manhattan to avoid using the subway and to take the busUpdates here: https://t.co/0Duo0Xc008
— NYT Metro (@NYTMetro) July 14, 2019
Con Edison said some 60,000 customers were without power, but the number of people actually affected was surely far higher than that.
The New York City Police Department was out in force, working to keep traffic moving and to guide citizens as needed.
As of 9:25 p.m. on Saturday night, there were no reports of injuries.
The Twitter account of Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio — currently campaigning in the state of Iowa — carried this note at 8:22 p.m. ET: “New York City’s Emergency Management is working with the NYPD, FDNY and city agencies to respond to power outages in Manhattan due to a manhole fire earlier in this evening … We’ll have further updates soon.”
“The quicker you can get out of that general area, the better you will be,” said former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to Fox News about the thousands of people currently milling about.
Some billboards in Times Square went completely dark — costing some companies potentially tens of thousands of dollars.
“Businesses that are losing money are probably having the worst time of it” right now, said a Fox News television correspondent on Saturday evening.
“The quicker you can get out of that general area, the better you will be,” said former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to Fox News about the thousands of people who were milling about.
As of approximately 10:30 p.m., the lights were coming back on for thousands.
Check out more on the situation in the tweets below.
Here's NYC without lights at sunset tonight. This is the anniversary of the 1977 blackout, btw. https://t.co/bKhv5HkuG9 pic.twitter.com/rj04XBsCb3
— Mister Weatherman PaulPoteetDotCom (@PaulPoteet) July 14, 2019
JUST IN: The power outage affecting parts of midtown Manhattan in New York City is "due to a manhole fire earlier this evening," according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. https://t.co/BrnoV3XJeE pic.twitter.com/uAK2f6DFsk
— ABC News (@ABC) July 14, 2019
As New York City experiences a power outage affecting more than 40,000 people, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he's not yet decided whether to return from Iowahttps://t.co/rHUU5zzSk7
— POLITICO (@politico) July 14, 2019
Electricity is out for tens of thousands of customers in New York as power outages cause problems in Manhattan https://t.co/eFT5kB3XcT pic.twitter.com/WHsHpS6EkP
— CNN (@CNN) July 14, 2019
This article has been updated.
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