Slowly moved its way up north. But that is the problem for a lot of people. We are hitting the top of the hour. I should mention that the power outage in New York City has now reached well past three hours. Here at msnbc along with morgan radford, weve been watching a number of different Breaking News situations right now. The big news that were getting here as we talk to you here at 10 00 p. M. We are now told at least 90,000 customers have been affected by this massive blackout here in New York City. When we first came on air several hours ago and they said that it was only about 20,000 customers, i knew that number was wrong, just based on the sheer topography. You have more than two square miles in New York City where people are in the dark. Now were being told by con edison officials that 90,000 customers which could mean hundreds of thousands of people
are in the dark right now at 10 00 at night. Just to do a quick reset for anyone who is joining us now. What we are facing out is
manhattan. we don t have any reports of people stuck in elevators, et cetera. but you have senior citizens, you have people with medical equipment at home. right. that they need functioning. you have hospitals in that area that are operating on backup generators, which are only designed for short-term use. so it s the cluster of public safety issues. and, governor, i want to go back to something you said a bit earlier. you said that you were going to view the transforms tonight and that this was a function of the system not operating in a way that it effectively should have tonight. so, how do we prevent this from happening in the future? well, that s for the after report, but i want to see it for myself. call me a somewhat cynical new yorker. this is not the first time we ve had a power outage, but the system is designed, and this con edison is a utility that is regulated. people pay their bills. they are supposed to have a
he s there on 6th avenue. kendis, it looks very dark out there. reporter: indeed. i m going to take that as another slight as how i look, morgan, but it is very fairly out here in new york city. i walked outside the building, and i will have to admit, it was absolutely surreal. you have walked outside this building many, many times. you ve walked 6th avenue, walked many of these streets. this is an iconic area, radio city, music hall. these sidewalks usually very much lit up. of course, rockefeller center normally would be lit up. this traffic light would normally be directing traffic. but instead it is completely dark, and people are just kind of milling around kind of seeming very, very lost. the street itself as you come out here, once again, the street is kind of like very, very, very kind of reminds you of
halal guys and all of the hot dog vendors and the regular street vendors, they are doing gangbuster business as well. but it s great to be able to know at least for the most part that it has been a fairly safe night. we have endured at least four hours of this blackout. it has brought many, many people together here in new york city. and we hope that everybody else remains safe while they finally get to restore the power in these parts. kendis, we just got breaking news that five of those six power networks have since been restored. but take me for a minute where you are outside. you said there are very few people outside now. but who is out there? is it law enforcement vehicles or are they pedestrians? who exactly is out there with you? reporter: i ll tell you for the most part these are just tourists, people who are just bewildered at what they are experiencing at this hour that, it is mostly tourists, and usually, you know, this is a big business area, as you know, morgan, on mo
yay! woo! might be on 8th avenue, new yorkers cheering, some excited to have the power come back on. unfortunately, i think where we have my colleague, kendis gibson, they re not seeing that overjoyed reaction because the power is not back on yet. let s go to kendis who is out there. i see it is still dark behind you. have any of the lights come back on since we last spoke to you, kendis? reporter: yes, morgan, we have been keeping a close eye on the lights and the power grid, at least in this area. so far we haven t noticed much of a difference whatsoever. of course, you had that latest report from con edison mentioning that five out of the six power grids were knocked out as a result of this power outage that took place more than four