An explosion near Ravenswood, the power plant just across the East River from Roosevelt Island, caused a chain reaction. Momentary power outages radiated as far as Westchester and the Upper West Side in Manhattan.
By David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
The Roosevelt Island Daily thanks our friend Sylvan Klein for an early alert.
First reports landed on Twitter shortly after the 8:30 blast on Sunday evening.
Commenters took Esposito to task for calling it a mushroom cloud, but echoes of brief power outages sounded from Bushwick in Brooklyn to Westchester. Everywhere in-between, including Roosevelt Island, got a hit.
“I had flickered lights, and my landline died while I was on it,” reported a Rivercross resident. “My cell and landline service were ‘interrupted’ for about 3-4 minutes, and frankly, I was quite upset.”
She chided her building as well as RIOC for not offering any information, but they weren’t alone.
An explosion near Ravenswood — what was it?
Con Edison said “a brief transmission disturbance.” But, they added, “no customers have lost service as a result of the event.”
That was little comfort for around 300 riders FDNY evacuated from 4 Trains stalled in the Bronx.
An hour after the explosion near Ravenswood, the MTA announced “extremely” limited service on numbered lines. They recommended buses, and that didn’t clear up until midnight.
Although those in the know became those who weren’t clear, the cause was an transformer fire following a manhole cover blow up in the street outside the power plant.
What caused the fire and smoke? Who knows, but the city was clueless.
Late in the evening, a more level headed Governor Kathy Hochul got involved.
“We are in talks with ConEd to determine whether the root cause is related to a power disruption earlier in the evening,” Hochul told AP News.
If Con Edison provides a clear answer, we will get it out to you. But don’t stay up late waiting.
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Stack Work Advances While Answers Do Not
On June 17 and 18, HPD told the first meeting of the Roosevelt Island Steam Plant Demolition Community Advisory Group that smokestack demolition had no projected start date. Residents and the CAG would receive at least five business days’ advance notice once a date was set. Scaffolding around the stacks could not proceed until soil removal and backfill were complete and the area stabilized.
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