Blocks of Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant were thrown into darkness after a series of manhole fires, and Con Edison says heat was almost certainly a factor. The outage hit one of the neighborhood's busy commercial stretches, leaving businesses and residents to cope without power during a stretch of sweltering weather.
The trouble began the night before, when smoking and small explosions were seen coming from inside the manholes at around 6 in the evening. The fires knocked out power along the affected blocks, and the timing, in the middle of a heat wave, made an already difficult situation worse.
For the businesses along the street, the loss of electricity was a serious blow. Some were forced to shutter entirely, while others tried to stay open in the dark and the heat, with customers and staff relying on flashlights to get by. Owners described it as a miserable experience that dragged on for hours.
Con Edison crews were sent in to deal with the damage, and could be seen working in the area as they tried to bring the system back online. According to those affected, power was finally restored at around 2 in the afternoon the following day, bringing an end to the outage.
What has frustrated people most, however, is that this is not the first time. The council member for the area said he had met with Con Edison in the same neighborhood when it was hit by power outages caused by the exact same problem during the winter, around February of this year.
At that time, he said, he had been assured by Con Edison that upgrades were made to prevent the problem from happening again. Seeing the same blocks lose power once more, he said he was very disappointed that it keeps happening, pointing out that people's power bills just keep rising and yet the outages continue.
For now, the lights are back on along Fulton Street, and business owners say they are simply glad it is over. But the repeat failure has left lingering questions about the state of the equipment beneath the street and about whether the promised fixes will be enough to keep the power on the next time the heat climbs.