Power restored after manhole fires knock out blocks of Fulton Street
Con Ed tells News 12 that heat was “almost certainly the cause” of the multiple manhole fires that erupted Thursday evening, taking out power and closing stores.
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Con Ed says power has been restored to a majority of customers along the busy commercial area in Bed-Stuy, after multiple rows of businesses lost power around 6 p.m. Thursday.
Con Ed tells News 12 that heat was “almost certainly the cause” of the multiple manhole fires that erupted Thursday evening, taking out power and closing stores.
Some stores tried to reopen on Friday morning without power or air conditioning.
"It was pretty dark. You had customers using their iPhone light. It was a pretty miserable experience," said Sunday, who works in one of the stores.
Council Member Chi Osse called the outages "incredibly disappointing," adding that these were many of the same businesses that lost power due to manhole fires during the winter.
"We're seeing these extreme temperatures cause these outages, and we were told in February that upgrades were happening to prevent this, so it seems people's bills are going up for nothing," he said.
Osse has met with the president of Con Ed during those outages and has unsuccessfully called for the utility to suspend bills for impacted customers.
Con Ed is a private company regulated at the state level with limited oversight from the city council, though some progressive state assembly members have called for the utility to come under state control.
