NW Bronx plagued by power outages

Last week, as temperatures topped off at around 95 degrees, residents in Riverdale found themselves suffering from frequent power outages and brownouts.

Larry Lerner, who lives on Independence Avenue near W. 252nd Street, said he and his neighbors endured three multi-hour power outages last week.

“This summer has been a bit different,” he said, acknowledging that he is used to suffering outages during storms and bad weather. “It’s just a concern that Con-Ed isn’t really getting a handle on [power outages].”

Mr. Lerner said the power went down at his home on July 25 at 8 p.m., and stayed down until about midnight. It was out again on July 29 from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m., and most recently on Saturday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

He said most of his neighbors who live between W. 252 and W. 254th streets had the same experience. Mr. Lerner said he has even bought an emergency generator because power outages are so frequent during the summers.

In response to increased demands and usage, Consolidated Edison sent a memo to northwest Bronx residents to warn that the power provider would be decreasing voltage in this region by 8 percent.

“The idea is to reduce voltage when equipment is becoming strained,” Allan Drury, a Con-Ed spokesperson, said. “It’s sort of a proactive way of preventing outages on a larger scale.”

Mr. Drury said some of the electric equipment in the city is very old and unable to withstand heavy usage from appliances such as air conditioners.

He said Riverdale was selected for the voltage reduction because, “that’s where the engineers have determined that the system can use a little bit of relief.”

Mr. Lerner, who received the memo, said the voltage reduction hadn’t made much of a difference.

“I’ve gone on the Con-Ed website and the outage map shows the exact same number of houses, about 67 customers,” he said. “It’s not a whole lot of people but it must be the same problem every single time.”

Sophia German Sass, who said she lived on W. 246th Street, also suffered an outage on July 24.

“Emergency crews from Con-Ed were working on it all night,” she said in a statement via Facebook. “The hallways in my building were without light and the elevators were down.”

Ms. German Sass posted a video to Facebook of a barely lit cityscape just outside of her apartment with a caption that read: “There’s a power outage on my block. Can’t believe it! In this awful heat.”

In the memo from Con-Ed, resident were asked to reduce “usage of non-essential electronic devices and appliances, such as clothes washers, dryers, dishwashers, and unneeded lighting.”