Thursday, July 6, 2023

When the lights flickered last night

We heard from about three dozen residents (mostly via Instagram messages) about flickering lights last night around 8:50, which prompted concerns of a brownout/blackout.

Some of the residents also reported hearing a pop, or as the Citizen app described it, an explosion...
Several readers reported that a manhole cover had been blown off from the sidewalk on the NW corner of Avenue A and Sixth Street. The FDNY promptly responded, and there weren't any reports of injuries. 

The lights also flickered for a second, and cable boxes rebooted. 

Most of the people we heard from live in proximity to Avenue A... with the furthest report coming from 14th Street between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

This morning, a Con Ed crew was working in a manhole on the east side of Avenue A at Sixth Street... just outside the ConEd substation. 

We reached out to Con Ed for more about what happened last night... likely related to the summer heat and excess power usage.

21 comments:

creature said...

6th and A here, and it was quite a BOOM. Thought an M80 or something BIG left over from the 4th went off.

Annie said...

Good to know I didn't imagine it. Thanks for the info!

Anonymous said...

Funny, I heard something too and thought it was fireworks starting up. Also my cable box inexplicably power cycled.

Anonymous said...

I didn't hear anything but I'm on 4th and 1st and my lights flickered, cable boxes didn't restart though!

Anonymous said...

It affected us (lights flickered and appliances slowed down briefly) up on 13th St between 2nd and 3rd Ave's.

Anonymous said...

12th & A here - lights flickered and cable box went out. Just also wanted to reiterate what an important resource EVGrieve is to our neighborhood!

Anonymous said...


Heard the boom. A couple things in my home flickered or rebooted.
I checked here shortly after it happened hoping for some info. (I look in comments inside the latest post to see if anybody posted anything there) Good to see something here, even if it's a while after the fact.
Of course nothing ever mentioned on the local news broadcasts.

Anonymous said...

4th btwn C and D. Lights definitely flickered

Anonymous said...

1st and East 4th also happened. A/C actually cycled off/on along with the lights. Thought it was heat-related brownout or something.

Anonymous said...

Can confirm we got the flicker at Ave C and 4th Street. In some ways I'm happy to hear it was a neighborhood issue and not us, given we recently had an electrical fire in our building.

Anonymous said...

We were out at Hi-Note last night, and the lights went lower for about a minute. Initially, we thought the bar had made the mood lighting even darker, but we overheard the bartender say something about how it seemed like a blown fuse.

jack said...

Hoping the city has a plan for a cascade failure blackout as it's going to be a hot summers from here on out.

Emergency generator cooling stations for the health compromised?? Mandatory commercial power conservation? - though any measures in that direction will elicit loud standard reasonable and fringe overreach complaints.

Anonymous said...

Good to know I was not the only one, thought I was going crazy or something. Not cool when watching a scary movie.

EVQP said...

9th St btw 1st and A here. Lights flickered for a second for us too - and reiterating anon 2.11's comment about how important EVG is to us!

Simon E said...

4th and A here. Thank you for the intel. I assumed at the time some local freelancers had strapped a bunch of M-80 together. Lived here for 31 years, I observe that the local July 4th fireworks are waaaay less in number and volume than they used to be. #notcomplaining

Anonymous said...

Was out our beloved keyfood when the great black out of 2023 happened. Overheard "stop playin..."

Anonymous said...

On A between 10th and 11th. Lights flickered and AC went down for a minute. Thought it was a problem with my AC. Scary though as all reports are were going to have a hot summer.

Anonymous said...

I was trying to pick up an Amazon package at "Keen" at Rite Aid and I think the blip blew the system & I couldn't get my stuff. sigh. After dealing with Amz call center forever, I left empty handed. On my way back home I went by all the firetrucks & was wondering what happened! I had only crossed that street 20 minutes earlier. It must've happened just after I passed by on my way to RA.

Anonymous said...

Had a brief flicker at 7th and B but nothing needed to be rebooted. Was glad to see the Instagram post today and know it wasn’t just us!

Anonymous said...

Little warning for everyone. Have some cash on hand. Have a backup phone charger charged. Summer's going to be very hot and our grid is fragile.

Anonymous said...

We also experienced the "flicker" and heard the BOOM. We immediately called in the report to Con Ed who opened a case file. Hope others did the same because it helps to have multiple confirmations of a problem to speed Con Ed's response. Thanks everybody!