As residents of the United States, Canada, Western Europe, or Australia, we far too frequently take things like steady access to power for granted.
While some regions, states, and municipalities in the United States, for example, have longer electrical system uptime than others, we should still consider ourselves lucky to live even in places in the United States that host the nation’s worst electrical infrastructure.
The objectively sizable region of New England – the Northeastern United States, in other geographic terms – and the larger Great Lakes region.
Unfortunately for people living in the states of Michigan and New York – residents of Wisconsin and Alabama were affected, as well, not to mention Virginia to the tune of just a few thousand utility customers – heat waves that ravaged the usually-mild states caused more than 100,000 unsuspecting paying customers to go without power for hours on end starting last night, Sunday, July 21, 2019.
Consolidated Edison, one of the most powerful utility companies owned by investors in the United States, which is also known as Con Edison or ConEd, attempted to fend off the blackout for its customers to no avail.
Yesterday evening is when the blackout came on. According to the Twitter page of the Democratic Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who has held the position to widespread support since 2011, just short of 50,000 customers in New York City alone were still without power as of 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time last night, on Sunday, July 21, 2019.
Governor Cuomot made clear just how fed up he was with the lack of power; his complaints were rightfully justified, as Consolidated Edison also failed to keep its infrastructure up and running last week as the result of a New York City transformer catching on fire. This incident ultimately affected some 70,000 residents of New York City.
On the bright side, New York City residents affected by yesterday’s blackouts were largely able to walk no more than a few blocks in any direction from their then-current location to find air conditioning, refrigerated drinks, frozen treats, or other ways to cool off during yesterday’s heat wave, which managed to keep going and going and going ad nauseam eerily similar to the Energizer Bunny.
Yesterday, some 825,000 residences and businesses across Michigan found themselves without power. Michigan power authorities warned customers that they could remain without power until Wednesday, July 24, 2019.
