A manhole fire caused outages on 51st and 52nd Streets. (Google Maps)
July 22, 2019, Jackie Strawbridge
About 400 local residents remain without power Monday afternoon, following massive outages in Queens and Brooklyn during this weekend’s heat wave.
The local outages — which mainly struck the buildings on 51st St. and 52nd St. between 39th Ave. and Skillman Ave — were caused by a manhole fire when equipment overheated, according to a Con Edison spokesperson.
They are just a fraction of the outages that left more than 30,000 Queens and Brooklyn residents without power over the course of the weekend, when temperatures during the dangerous heat wave reached 100 degrees.
Con Edison is expecting to fully restore power to the 51st and 52nd Street buildings by 7 p.m. tonight.
When asked to explain that timeframe, a spokesperson responded that underground systems are harder to access and therefore take longer to repair.
The spokesperson also said that anyone wishing to submit claims for compensation due to lost service should call 1-800-752-6633.
