BEDFORD-STUYVESANT – HUNDREDS OF CON EDISON customers in northern and central Brooklyn were without power from Monday into Wednesday morning through single-digit temperatures, as the power utility company struggled to make repairs in the wake of Winter Storm Fern last weekend. The outages began on Monday during the snowfall, when 786 customers lost power, according to Patch, with work initially estimated to be completed by 5 p.m. that day, but new problems continued to arise.
According to Councilmember Chi Osse, Con Ed said that repairs were hampered by vehicles blocking access to infrastructure, and that multiple manholes had been damaged by the snow and salt.
By Monday night, over 990 Bedford-Stuyvesant customers had been affected. On Tuesday, Osse posted that Con Ed had discovered further infrastructure issues related to the weather and was attempting to set up temporary fixes to aid residents. As of Wednesday morning, power crews had reportedly been working through the night on temporary repairs; Con Ed’s outage map showed around 300 customers in Bed-Stuy still waiting for service, with completion estimated for Wednesday night.
Additional outages in Clinton Hill and Williamsburg on Wednesday affected dozens more. Crews have been dispatched to those locations as well.
Residents took to social media to commiserate and ask for updates, reporting brownouts and blackouts. “This is torture that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy! The covers aren’t even helping at the point [because] the cloth is cold too!,” one user wrote on Reddit, also thanking the utility workers.
