Con Edison: 650,000 Without Power

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s landfall, more than 650,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County lost electrical power, Con Edison said early today.  Natural disasters of this nature can be devastating and create serious challenges for facility managers and building owners to endure.

"This is the largest storm-related outage in our history," says Con Edison Senior Vice President for Electric Operations John Miksad. The previous record was more than 200,000 customers affected by Hurricane Irene in 2011.

Miksad cautioned crews must assess damage prior making to repairs, but early today low-lying areas of New York City and Westchester County remained under water.

Challenges include more than 200 wires down on Staten Island. In Westchester County, more than 180 roads are closed.

Restoring electrical service to underground equipment demands cleaning all components of sea water, drying and testing to make it safe to restore power.

Latest outages as of 1 a.m.Tuesday:

Manhattan: 193,000 customers
Westchester County: 158,000
Queens: 74,000
Brooklyn: 71,000
Staten Island: 76,000
Bronx: 38,000