you are safe and as you said, everything seemed to have gone quite smoothly. and that seems to be the good news item out of all of this, that no one has been injured, that there was no chaos, that both drivers and people on the street managed this quite calmly and went about their business waiting for the power to come back on. con edison, the power company of new york, now saying that the number of people who are still without power is 16,000. that is down from a far higher number. so slowly, gradually, the power coming back on in new york. we re going to take a quick break. we ll have more news right after this. ein recharge leave-in conditioner. our heat protecting formula, leaves hair 15-times stronger. in just 1 use elvive revives damaged hair.
it s just an inconvenience for most people but in the back of your mind you always worry about something more nefarious. so far all the evidence is to the contrary. con ed is getting to the bottom of it. the most interesting sight, as a resident tonight, alex, looking down from up in a high-rise building, hoping not to have to use the stairs or anything, looking at all the people walking by on their cellphones as it was getting dark, they were like little fireflies because now a blackout in a cellphone age, a social media age, means people did at least have flashlights for a little while. power has been restored to five of the six parts of manhattan that lost power. we re in the one part of the city that still does not have power. as you mentioned, authorities are hoping to have that back online by midnight. and brian, you are in one of the most trafficked parts of the city. moments ago we saw one of those horses go behind you, tourists using those to ride through
people were asking us what was going on on, what was causing the chaos. we did definitely see a number of emergency vehicles, alex, that seemed to be moving into position across the west side of manhattan, fire trucks and police cars certainly being deployed on the city and state level, fanning out to help where needed and if needed. they were trying to make their way through the traffic. i can tell you, it wasn t a lot of chaos, just a heavy amount of traffic. we saw more and more lights come on farther north, relief for people wondering if they would have to make it through the night without power, if they would have to go down a lot of stairs and spend the night elsewhere. certainly we also saw police officers trying to get a handle on the heavy traffic by diverting cars. we were diverted to the west side highway for a while. lights are back on on the west
we re staying on top of the situation in manhattan where power is gradually being restored after that blackout. but of course we don t want to lose track what s happening farther south with tropical storm barry. cnn s derek van dam has the latest for us. derek, in the weather center, we re hearing the governor of louisiana is saying the worst is still to come. that s correct, alex. in fact it s important that people and residents of louisiana don t let their guard down, because the bands of heavy rain have not yet moved onshore for most locations. mobile, alabama, had a band of and there produced six inches of rain earlier this evening. that has since moved on. there were tornado warnings in
can be an unpleasant place to be. we weren t hearing much of the symphony of horns that you often here. i was south of the lincoln tunnel for half an hour. people seemed to be keeping their heads, having patience, keep their cool. at that point people had heard word of the power outage and knew that if they were out in their cars, they were in for a bit of a night. people are relieved at the traffic lights being back on. for the most part people are remaining pretty calm. they ve been through power outages before. this is certainly widespread, certainly the kind of thing that can be very much of a struggle if you re in a high floor or in a car. but absolutely, we re talking about a matter of hours now, we re seeing a lot of the power restored, that s a very positive sign for many. all right, alexandra field there in new york, thankfully