A giant blackout left part of Manhattan without power for a few hours on Saturday night, plunging subway stations into darkness, blocking elevators, extinguishing 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 did not communicate on the causes of the blackout. The power returned shortly after 10 p.m., followed by a clamor, AFP noted.
On social networks, dozens of Internet users posted photos of dark underground stations in the evening.
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 cut 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 neighborhood had gone out.
The only bright spots were the flashing lights of the police cars and fire engines.
Police officers at crossroads tried somehow to regulate traffic, shouting regularly to vehicles “Let’s go!”, AFP noted, while New Yorkers marched peacefully on avenues closed to traffic.
New York has plenty of ideas, and just minutes after the break began, passers-by scrambled to keep traffic, while the “Hadestown” musical troupe and a choir performing at the prestigious Carnegie Hall have relocated to the sidewalk to continue their show.
Several dozen guests 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 lacked 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 origin 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 had been 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.
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