Watch: Scenes from a three-hour long power outage in the West Side of Manhattan, New York
The blackout came on the same day as the historic New York outage of 1977: July 13.
NYC #Blackout as seen from NJ. pic.twitter.com/YlpShh3wQA
— Brian Cristiano (@boldceo) July 14, 2019
The West Side of New York’s Manhattan borough was plunged into darkness for at least three hours on the evening of July 13 as the area faced a massive power outage.
The outage temporarily trapped people in trains and elevators, CNN reported. Many theatre performances and concerts were interrupted, including one featuring singer Jennifer Lopez at Madison Square Garden. Broadway saw some impromptu performances after power in theatres went out.
Very nice. Cast of @hadestown singing to the disappointed audience about the #blackout. pic.twitter.com/zIHuozHIGu
— angela pinsky (@AngelaPinsky) July 13, 2019
I guess this is what they call a New York moment. After being trapped on the F for an hour because of the power outage I emerged to see dark restaurants & traffic lights, civilians directing traffic, & an evacuated Carnegie Hall concert happening in the street. #nyc #Blackout pic.twitter.com/3p9UWtRrel
— Briallen Hopper (@briallenhopper) July 14, 2019
As the traffic lights and signals went out of service, people took it upon themselves to regulate the movement of vehicles manually in the outage-affected area (and probably enjoyed themselves).
KUDOS TO THE NYC RESIDENT DIRECTING TRAFFIC DURING THE NYC BLACKOUT WHILE THE COPS ARE TOO BUSY DEALING WITH EMERGENCIES! pic.twitter.com/BsucQ2SNkI
— Matlock (@Matlock21045895) July 14, 2019
Times Square was also affected, with billboards going blank.
Times Square is down, i repeat, Times Square is down. This is not a drill!! #Blackout #NYC pic.twitter.com/8IUfER7ozl
— Sahid Abraham (@Sahid0) July 13, 2019
The New York Fire Department said that a transformer fire caused the outage, The Guardian reported.
