DARK AGES: CON ED NO POWER UNTIL NOVEMBER 10

Con Ed, the folks strapped with restoring power to Manhattan and Brooklyn say that a majority of people, currently in the dark, will have no choice but to wait until Nov. 10.

NYPost:

Con Ed said today it’ll take until the weekend of Nov. 10 to restore power to a “vast majority” of its customers.

The company also says it’ll take until Saturday to restore power to lower Manhattan and other parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn served by underground wires.

Overhead wires are a bigger problem for the company. Con Ed says it is dealing with more than 100,000 downed wires.

Outside help is arriving — the utility says 1,600 contractors and utilty workers from as far away as California are being brought in to aid its power restoration efforts.

Power was restored to more than 100,000 Con Ed customers overnight, the company says.

That left about 650,000 Con Ed customers were without power as of 11 a.m.

Manhattan remained the worst-off area, with 228,000 Con Ed customers — mostly below 36th Street — still without power. That was about 10,000 fewer customers than yesterday.

Most of lower Manhattan’s power loss was caused by the flooding of Con Ed’s East 14th Street substation, where repair work is still under way.

Brooklyn’s power situation has improved dramatically, with 49,000 Con Ed customers reported without power this morning, down from 109,000 yesterday.

Elsewhere in the city, the count of powerless Con Ed customers was 94,000 in Queens, 73,000 in Staten Island and 37,000 in the Bronx.

About 164,000 Con Ed customers are without power in Westchester County, down about 10,000 from yesterday.

The company yesterday restored power to most of Brighton Beach and Coney Island in Brooklyn. It also restored power to 2,000 customers in its Cortland network in Manhattan, which serves the central part of the Financial District.

Con Ed says power to all customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn served by underground wires should also be restored by Friday or Saturday.

Customers served by overhead wires could wait a week or longer to get power back.

Power is also being restored slowly on Long Island. About 680,000 Long Island Power Authority customers were reported without power at noon, down more than 100,000 from yesterday.

In New Jersey, 1.8 million utility customers were without electricity today, down about 225,000 from yesterday.