Days After Manhattan Blackout, Storms Leave Thousands in Dark

(Bloomberg) -- Less than a week after a faulty relay knocked out power to a sizable swath of Manhattan, Consolidated Edison Inc. found itself facing two more threats to its grid: powerful summer storms, and heat.

Storms bearing strong winds and lightning rolled through the New York City area Wednesday night and early Thursday, cutting electricity to about 16,800 ConEd customers. By mid-morning, power had been restored to 15,000 of those customers, although the company reported lingering outages in Westchester County, the Bronx and Queens.

In New Jersey, Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. reported about 44,700 customers losing power overnight. Of those, 40,000 had electricity restored by 8 a.m., the company reported. Both utilities reported placing extra crews on duty should further storms or the heatwave lead to more outages.

On Saturday, problems with a protective relay system blacked out portions of New York City’s Upper West Side and Midtown neighborhoods.

To contact the reporter on this story: David R. Baker in San Francisco at dbaker116@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Steven Frank

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