Con Ed Restores Power To Brooklyn, Queens

NEW YORK [CBS] — The power problems that impacted thousands of ConEd customers in Brooklyn were finally over Sunday.

Late Friday night the utility reduced voltage by 8-percent in the central and southwest parts of the borough due to problems with some electrical cables.

On Saturday, crews went underground in neighborhoods like Brighton Beach to head off potential blackouts.

ConEd also called customers in the affected areas, asking them to cut back on their usage.

“We were told to stop the electricity as much as possible, turn off the air conditioner,” said Anne Yellin of Manhattan Beach.

“It’s a very conservative preventive measure that our engineers take to prevent a much bigger problem from developing,” said Mike Clendenin of ConEd.

All power was back to normal by 7:00 Saturday night.

About 120,000 customers were affected.

John Miksad, senior vice president of electrical operations for Con Edison, said the utility has been able to hold the line by offering rate reductions to corporate customers for shutting down elevators, escalators and other equipment. “This demand reduction program reduced about 400 megawatts from peak demand, and that’s equivalent to 400,000 homes, or Staten Island,” Miksad said.