so that is an amazing moment from the cast of the broadway musical come from away, along with others from other theaters, their show was canceled so they took it outside. people are in a little bit of a rush to get to work and stuff. all right. for more i want to bring in cnn s brian stelter. he s been at columbus circle all night. brian, we spoke to you moments ago, the power is still out where you are. the power has been coming on gradual, con edison said just moments ago 16,000 people, down from 72,000, are still without power. where you are, the power just came back on? reporter: alex, did i lose
this doesn t happen. you can t have a power of this magnitude in this city. it is too dangerous. the potential for public safety risk and chaos is too high. we just can t have a system that doesn t. it s that simple at the end of the day. and that s what we re going to work on. i want to see with my own queens devise transform to see the transformer that started it all. thank you. new york governor andrew cuomo right there briefing reporters and the public as well as john mcavoy, the ceo of con edison, the power company. the headline there that all of the power has been restored in manhattan. the 73,000 customers according to mcavoy, they have gotten their power back. that is the positive headline from con edison. the governor of new york, andrew
somebody s dog. how many hurricanes is this for you? i ve lost track of hurricanes. it s probably at least, you know, a couple of dozen hurricanes and tropical storms and whatnot. i ve been in a lot of cat 4, cat 5 hurricanes. this one has actually been a little bit more laid back, if you will, for a hurricane. the winds are a little white li. i m used to power poles down every, trees down everywhere. the power has been out since 3:00 in the morning. outside of that, it hasn t been into intense. but as you said, trees are coming down and it s wise to stay indoors. it doesn t take much as these older, weaker trees get water logged, they can get brought down by the lightest of winds. aaron jayjack, you are an experienced hand but we hope you
one has been hurt. polo sandoval near times square, thank you very much. as polo mentioned, the power is slowly coming back on. we re hearing from new yorkers what it was like during those hours that the power was out. take a quick listen. i was on the sixth floor. we lost power very quickly. my understanding is that there s a wire underneath our building, 101 west end, that caused the transformer to explode, and that explosion caused a blackout. reporter: tell me about the glow stick. you like the glow stick? the safety of our building, high tech, they gave us glow sticks to go down the stairwell. enterprising rescue item there, glow sticks handed out to new york city residents. joining me is cnn s alexandra field. alex, you were driving through the streets of new york, i
announcer: this is cnn breaking news. you are live in the cnn newsroom i m alex marquardt in washington, d.c. taking over for ana cabrera. it is breaking news right now on cnn. and great news for the people living in and visiting new york city on this summer weekend. a power outage that plunged much of manhattan into darkness a few hours ago is gradually, fingers crossed, coming to an end. the building lights are coming back on. the streetlights also coming back on. the power company, con edison, which runs the electric grids, are hopeful that most of their new york city customers will have power once again restored by midnight eastern time. that is in one hour from now. police officials and coned engineers say the blackout was caused by a fire that happened inside a manhole. and despite the widespread