Con Edison is offering an explanation for this past weekend’s blackout in Midtown.
A relay protection system at a substation didn’t isolate a bad 13,000 volt distribution cable. That damaged cable resulted in a series of failures that spread through midtown.
"The city that never sleeps cannot be left in the dark. While I appreciate that Con Edison released their preliminary findings so quickly, I am troubled that one of the few factors Con Edison initially ruled out, the 13,000 volt cable, has been determined to be the catalyst of the outage,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.
The power outage left more than 70,000 New Yorkers in the dark for about five hours. It stopped subway trains and resulted in Broadway shows being canceled.
“Our City cannot be left in the dark like this ever again, and we will continue to push Con Edison for a full accounting of this incident to ensure they are taking necessary steps to protect all New Yorkers,” de Blasio said.
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