Lights Flicker Across NYC Amid Brief Power outage

NEW YORK (AP) — Lights flickered, a subway line was disrupted and some elevators and escalators briefly stopped running when a small explosion at an electrical facility caused a momentary power outage in most of New York City Thursday night.

“Essentially people saw a flicker in their lights for about a second a little bit before midnight and then voltage recovered or kind of went back to normal,” said Matthew Ketschke, the president of the power utility Con Edison.

Ketschke told reporters early Friday that a piece of equipment at a Brooklyn substation short-circuited. He said a protective system akin to a circuit breaker isolated the failed equipment, leading to a brief voltage dip.

A video posted on X shows smoke from the power plant blast floating above the Manhattan Bridge.

Ketschke said about 10 people had to be rescued from stalled elevators across the city.

The outage halted subway service between Grand Central Terminal and Wall Street, New York City Transit officials said in a statement on X.

Long Island Rail Road officials said in a separate statement that all of Grand Central’s elevators and escalators went out of service as well.