A policeman regulates traffic during a power outage in Times Square, New York, July 13, 2019. – AFP
A giant blackout left part of Manhattan without power for a few hours on Saturday night, plunging subway stations into darkness, blocking elevators, turning off traffic lights and illuminated signs in Times Square, New York’s tourist hotspot. .
West of Manhattan, about 42,000 users were deprived of electricity in the early evening, according to the company Con Edison, which has not communicated on the causes of the blackout. Power returned shortly after 10 p.m. local time (4 a.m. Sunday, French time), followed by a clamor. On social networks, dozens of Internet users posted photos of dark underground stations in the evening.
#BLACKOUT: #Manhattan is almost in complete darkness right now. This outage comes on the anniversary of a similar black out back in 1977. #NYC https://t.co/LjiFrIM37l pic.twitter.com/F9VQlTJZuX
– Dan Lampariello (@DanWGME) July 14, 2019
While waiting for the power to be restored, the New York transport authority, the MTA, had asked travelers to “avoid underground stations” in Manhattan, that is to say almost the entire network. On the surface – with the power outage having been total in the Broadway and Hell’s Kitchen theater area, further west – the traffic lights had ceased to function and the giant billboards in the Times Square district had gone out. The only luminous marks were the flashing lights of the police cars and the fire engine.
Right on the anniversary of the “Blackout” of 1977
Police officers stationed at crossroads tried somehow to regulate traffic, regularly shouting at vehicles “Let’s go!” “, Noted AFP, while New Yorkers walked peacefully on avenues closed to traffic. New York has plenty of ideas, and just minutes after the break began, passers-by sought to keep traffic, while the “Hadestown” musical troupe and a choir performing at the prestigious Carnegie Hall relocated to the sidewalk to continue their show.
Several dozen customers of the Row NYC Hotel on 8th Avenue were waiting outside the establishment, sitting on the sidewalk. Alba Moreno, a 16-year-old Spanish tourist, explained that hotel staff asked them not to try to enter the property, which was devoid of all lighting and working elevators. Firefighters said on Saturday that they were responding to many requests for intervention, including about people stuck in elevators.
The source of the blackout “appears to be something gone wrong in the way they transmit electricity from one part of town to another to meet demand,” MSNBC told Iowa. , the mayor of the city Bill de Blasio. Ironically, the blackout occurred on the anniversary of the “Blackout”, the gigantic power cut that affected almost the entire city, in 1977. In the midst of the economic crisis, New York was the scene of looting and vandalism, with more than a thousand businesses affected. Power was only restored after 25 hours and after several hundred arrests. Two other massive blackouts also hit New York in 1965 and 2003.
