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
at once or if it is as the governor explained. i think we need to wait and see what the investigation brings in terms of cause and why this happened. of course, it s not supposed to happen, the power is supposed to stay on. it s a saturday. it was not overwhelmingly hot. a lot of businesses were closed on a saturday, so you don t have an overtaxing of the system. so they do not believe that is a cause. but whether it is the fire on 49th street, the explosion or fire of a transformer on 64th street, a combination of those two events happening at the same time. i think we need to wait and see what the investigation finds. but the governor did say he is ordering a separate investigation into what happened to try to get some answers so that it does not happen again. so two ongoing investigations. and just a recap here for anyone who s joining us. the headlines from the con ed
fluid situation. i know you mentioned that governor cuomo was calling for an investigation. for those viewers who are just joining us, can you take us back to the beginning and describe what we do know thus far about that transformer and about that manhole explosion? okay. there are two incidents that took place this evening according to police and fire officials. and both appear to be accidental, electrical in nature. nothing at all deliberate. and the first one is that at 49th street on the far west side, there was some sort of fire, man hole explosion that impacted service to the west side of manhattan. a short time later on west 64th street, a transformer caught fire, exploded, on the west side there, also impacting. are the two incidents related? unclear. the investigation s going to have to determine whether one caused the other or whether they were two isolated incidents that
a 10:30 press conference at west 64th and west end avenue to update on the cause of this incident which appears to be a mechanical fire transformer-type fire that spread and led to the outage on the west side. police, fire, office of emergency management personnel will be joining con ed at that press conference planned now for 10:30 at west 64th street and west end avenue. a leading nypd official says extra police have been deployed all across the west side as a precaution to help with traffic, to help with security outside many of the retailers that are now closed without power just to ensure everything remains safe. extra ambulances, extra fire trucks are also in the vicinitiy to provide assistance as a