More Lights Go On in Queens, One Unhappy Block at a Time

[cal04]

Consolidated Edison reported major progress yesterday in the week-old struggle to restore power to western Queens, but thousands faced a new workweek without electricity and frustrations boiled over as some officials called for a declaration of emergency and the resignation of the utility’s chief executive.

Kevin Burke, Con Ed’s chairman and chief executive, said at a 4 p.m. briefing that utility crews had restored power to nearly 16,000 of the approximately 25,000 customers affected by the blackout. In human terms, that meant that the lights, elevators, refrigerators and air conditioners were back on for an estimated 64,000 of the 100,000 people who had suffered through the ordeal.

In an update last night, Michael Clendenin, a spokesman for the utility, said that by 5:45 p.m., service had been restored to more than 19,000 customers. That amounts to about 76,000 people, using a layman’s rule of thumb that counts four people for every “customer,” which could be a single home or an entire apartment building.

(snip)
The time for explanation and apologies is over,” Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat of New York, said at another news conference. He declared that the blackout had grown to “disastrous proportions.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/nyregion/24astoria.html?hp&ex=1153713600&en=690f7dc78cdce090&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[niallmac]

1. "...no explanation for why the 10 major cables went down..."

There is an explanation. Will it turn out to be a decrepit infrastructure or satan?