Thousands of Brooklynites are without power in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaias, marking the second largest power outage in Con Edison history following Superstorm Sandy, according to the service provider.
In Brooklyn, 24,088 customers are in the dark as of 5 pm, with just 1,497 having had their power restored, out of 217,331 outages systemwide. The utility said that restoring power to all who have lost it is going to be an arduous process.
“It’s going to take days, not hours,” said Con Edison spokesman Allan Drury. “It’s going to be a multi-day restoration.”
Drury said 220 additional crew members are working alongside Con Edison staff to restore power.
In Brooklyn, a large pocket of outages are concentrated along the borough’s southern and southeastern neighborhoods, according to Con Edison’s outage map, which marks 1,445 customers out of power in Flatlands, 627 in Marine Park, and over 3,000 in East Flatbush.
The storm downed hundreds of trees across the city, causing power lines to be toppled. As the weather clears, additional crews will asses the damage and work to restore power, according to Drury.
“It’s the second largest outage in company history,” he said.
The outages come just days after Con Edison urged almost 100,000 Brooklynites from Gowanus to Bensonhurst to limit their power usage while the company completed repairs, and on the heels of a two-week heatwave.
This story first appeared on our sister publication brooklynpaper.com.
