Patience thins as residents remain in the dark for days

There has been no calm after Monday’s storm.

Many of those who lost power are still in the dark — their food rotting and their patience growing thinner — and now local gas stations have run out of fuel.

On Thursday afternoon, an electric wire stretched along West 231st Street toward Riverdale Avenue, where traffic lights were out. 

Power outages left no traffic lights working at the corner of Bailey Avenue and West 231st Street and no electricity at nearby homes. Heath Avenue was powerless from Fort Independence down to Albany Crescent Thursday, according to Francisco Ramos, who lives at 3111 Heath Ave. and works as a superintendent at four other buildings on the block.

He said a heat and hot water interruption in his building is only making maters worse.

“The basement is like an ice box. We sleep with six blankets and eat with candles. There’s no boiler and about 70 families with kids."

“We call and we call and we call. They [ConEd staff] say we’re working on it, but nothing,” Mr. Ramos said.

Since they won’t return to PS 7 until Monday Mr. Ramos said he followed up a dinner of stove-cooked chicken noodle soup on Wednesday, by having his two kids to do “extra homework by candlelight.”

Curt Johnson, a 2465 Palisade Ave. resident, packed up his family after Columbia University, where his wife works, offered them temporary housing. After nearly three days on a canned-goods and diner diet, Mr. Johnson said he was eager to crash in a heated building and take his first shower.

Lucy Davila has been trekking daily with her children, Hailey Davila, a sophomore at IN-Tech Academy MS/HS 368, and Noah James Davila, 1, to their grandmother’s in Harlem to charge their phones.

“It’s expensive. The refrigerator, the baby food, everything is ruined,” she said.

Gail Schorsch, who lives on West 261st Street near Fieldston Road and was also in the dark, was trying to remain positive.

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