Power outages in Brooklyn, Queens impact hundreds during NYC's coldest weather in years
Hundreds of New Yorkers remain without power Monday as outages continue in Brooklyn and Queens amid the city's coldest weather in years.
Con Edison said crews could have electricity completely restored by 3 p.m. in Bushwick, Flatbush, Williamsburg, Flushing, Jamaica and Richmond Hill.
The utility has been working to bring power back since the first outage late Saturday night in Bushwick spilled into Sunday, while all of New York City was under an extreme cold warning.
Con Edison blames snow and road salt
Con Ed said it was experiencing problems in Bushwick caused by snow and road salt mixing together and seeping into its ground equipment.
Roads around Schaefer Street and Central Avenue were blocked off Sunday as the utility said crews were working as quickly and safely as possible to fix the problem.
The vast majority of people impacted by the initial outage had power restored last night, Con Ed said.
Concern for New Yorkers amid extreme cold
The combination of bitterly cold temperatures and subzero wind chills has caused great concern among New York City leaders, especially since the entire city was under an extreme cold warning earlier Sunday and the low temperatures and bone-rattling wind chills will continue into Monday morning at least.
In response, Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded shelter options throughout the entire weekend. Nearly 65 warming facilities are open, including dozens of warming buses.
Mamdani visited one in Manhattan earlier Sunday and shared a message on social media.
"It is one of the coldest days that New York City has seen in a long, long time. It's actually colder today in New York City than in parts of Antarctica," Mamdani wrote.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, 17 New Yorkers have died over the last two weeks due to the freezing weather.
Impacted residents running out of patience
Bushwick residents made it clear to CBS News New York they just wanted their nightmare power outage to end.
"This is the first time I experienced this, and it was ridiculous. With my kids also, they were scared, and we couldn't see anything. It's bad, really bad," resident Sade Logan said.
"Unfortunately, I have no electricity or heat right now. So it says it's about 40 degrees in my apartment since last night," Lauren Wise said.
"All of a sudden, it was really cold, and I didn't know what was going on. I was like, what the heck? I found out the lights were off. I was like, wait, that's not something else is going on here. The radio wasn't going on, then I realized pretty much the whole block lost power," Angus Lin added.
