Days after last week\u2019s massive snowstorm, the cold is still lingering for hundreds of Brooklyn residents who spent much of the weekend in the dark.<\/p>\n
In Bedford-Stuyvesant, more than 1,000 Con Edison customers lost power over several days as melting snow and road salt seeped into the utility\u2019s underground electric system, triggering a series of outages that frustrated residents and tested families already dealing with winter weather.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 Con Edison customers in Bedford-Stuyvesant lost power after last week\u2019s snowstorm
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Melting snow and road salt damaged underground electric equipment, causing repeated outages
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A warming center with cots opened at P.S. 309 for those still without power<\/p>\n
For City Council member Chi Oss\u00e9, the situation has sparked anger and worry across his district.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems as if every single time one section of our power system has been repaired, there has been a disruption in other parts of our power system or our grid system,\u201d Oss\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n
The outages, he said, have taken a toll on families with young children and older residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s ranging from families who have young ones who were not sick at the start of the week and are now coughing up a storm,\u201d Oss\u00e9 told NY1. \u201cI spoke to one family that is worried about their child catching pneumonia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Con Edison says the storm created particularly difficult conditions underground, where salt and melting snow can damage cables and equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe road salt they use to melt the snow mixes with snow and ice, gets in our underground structures and will cause failures in underground cable,\u201d said Matt Ketschke, president of Con Edison of New York. \u201cWe have to get underground to find and locate the problem. That was really challenging for us here, given the weather. We had to excavate, get into those manholes and find the problem. We had a number of cable failures caused by the melting snow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The utility said crews worked around the clock in hazardous conditions to restore service. Some residents acknowledged the effort, even as they endured long, cold nights without electricity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did see Con Ed working very hard. This was a very difficult situation,\u201d Ivion Davis told NY1.<\/p>\n
Davis said her power was restored Saturday morning, but the night before was especially difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get to sleep last night because it felt like I was standing outside or lying down outside,\u201d she said. \u201cMore importantly for me is that my husband has a medical device that\u2019s how we depend. We just weren\u2019t sure what was going to happen or what could have happened last night. That was a little precarious.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others said the biggest challenge was not knowing when power would return. Tarek Simon, who lives on the same block as Davis, praised the crews but criticized Con Edison\u2019s communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was one of the bigger issues,\u201d Simon told NY1. \u201cWe did get a lot of communication. However, it wasn\u2019t accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simon said clearer information could have helped residents make safer choices, particularly for seniors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat really manifested with the elders on the block,\u201d he said. \u201cI for one had to bring elders on and off the block. If we had known earlier, we could have made better decisions about what they should do.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of Monday, some residents remain without power. A warming center remains open at P.S. 309, where cots were added over the weekend to give those affected a place to sleep and escape the cold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Days after last week\u2019s massive snowstorm, the cold is still lingering for hundreds of Brooklyn residents who spent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[22996,25,1434,98,100,99,3691,3242,9,24,12,63,27,200,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-119828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-app-environment","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-app-weather","11":"tag-brooklyn","12":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","13":"tag-brooklyn-news","14":"tag-emma-barnett","15":"tag-environment","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod","22":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}