No end to NYC blackout

2006-07-23 08:01

New York - The damage to energy company Consolidated Edison's underground network in the Queens borough is greater than the company imagined - a twist in the six-day power outage that could mean electricity won't be back until early in the week, the mayor reported on Saturday.

"It'll be done when it's done," mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters gathered in Queens' Astoria Park, where the city's emergency command center for the blackout is set up.

Later on Saturday, Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke held his first news conference about the blackout since it began, apologising to customers for the inconvenience and attributing the outages to an unprecedented failure of multiple power lines.

"It was really a very extraordinary event, something that I've never seen before," Burke said. "I don't know right now what has happened."

To hasten the restoration of power to as many as 20 000 customers, or about 80 000 people, electrical crews from as far away as Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, were on their way to New York to assist Con Ed in the restoration of the network, Bloomberg said.

Con Ed crews "are going manhole to manhole, pulling up every line," the mayor said. As workers inspected underground cables and transformers, Bloomberg said, they "found more damage than they thought they would find. They were surprised."

Con Ed spokesperson Mike Clendenin said the damage to underground equipment in Queens is "extensive," including burned out cables and transformers that need to either be repaired or replaced. The equipment will later be analyzed to determine how the damage contributed to the blackout, Clendenin said.

A round of thunderstorms Friday made the problem worse, flooding manholes that had to be emptied before work could continue. In addition, the bad weather knocked out some major circuits that had only recently been restored.

Con Edison has not been able to explain why the power distribution system began failing in the area on Monday at the height of a heat wave.

But Burke was able to detail the damage.

Burke said the problem began with failures on a series of feeder cables, circuits that carry 27 000 volts and supply entire neighbourhoods with power.

There are 22 such feeder cables in the network serving the area with the outages, and they are designed to work redundantly, meaning if one fails, others can pick up the load.

Starting on Monday, however, multiple feeders failed, leaving 10 out of service at the worst of the crisis.

Now, only one is out, but the repair work is far from over.

Burke said the current problem involves lower-voltage cables that were apparently damaged by carrying larger amounts of current than normal while Con Edison tried to keep the system running without its main feeders.

The problems seemed to occur in the system at several levels, from the big feeder circuits that bring power to the neighborhoods, to the smaller lines that carry current to individual blocks.

Smoke poured from the ground in some locations during the week as underground cables burned.

The utility company has fielded a chorus of criticism, from citizens irate at how long they are waiting for their power to the charge from City Council member Eric Gioia that Con Ed's "failure to accurately report the extent of this crisis has slowed response time and caused critical delays."

The utility originally said the electrical failures affected just a couple thousand private and business customers in Queens. But on Friday, Con Edison provided a new estimate of 25 000 customers, or as many as 100 000 people.

Joseph Bruno, commissioner of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said Saturday that power had been restored to no more than 15% of customers.

- SAPA