and breathing. that s where you will find most of of the problems. they will be stuck in their upper floor apartments. these are 10 amounts from the early 20th century and and 19th century. people are going to be unfortunately very, very hot. it will be difficult. and older people will have a hard time. leland: joe, we ll let you get back to your job. i know you have constituents to look after. we ll check back in with you throughout the night. we are now 2 1/2 hours into this blackout between 50th street and 70th street on the westside of manhattan. you are looking at times square where you can see folks on the streets. very few cars.
the new york fire department commissioner for many years, including during september 11th. the nypd says no foul play, this was caused by a manhole fire. what does that mean? it all made sense up until the the latest report that the garden was affected also. because from 50th street to 70th street, once you drop down to 7th and the garden you wonder if con ed has got control of it. i think there s going to be a press conference in a while. they ll be able to give everybody a better briefing on whether they re able to control it, isolate it and bring it back. those folks that are stuck outside of the hotel are hoping to get back in there in the next hour or couple hours. the fire department dispatchers are going crazy.
totally out. at situation where i am, 6th avenue and 50th street. the lights are out as you mentioned for the first time. it s noteworthy, griff, as you look up 6th avenue and up toward central park. it appears to me the only vehicle i guess you could say were things with wheels on them. moving up ofth avenue is the rickshaws. i don t know if we can zoom in on this shot. but it hooks like there is a convoy of police cars and con-ed which is the power company trucks moving up 6th avenue. was that your what you are seeing as well? that right, lou. we have a live view on my live view it s a little dicey. but you can see the convoy
power outage for a couple of days until they can rebuild it? there are so many different things that can go wrong. but sometimes we see cases where con-ed brought in a portable generator. it s tough to say whether they have the capacity to bring portable generator should that be needed. leland: this is on the very westside of manhattan between 70th and 50th street. if we do a split screen from where the transformer blew, it s totally dark with the exception of emergency lights. the buildings have elevators. you conceivably could have people trapped in those elevators. the right-hand side of your screen is looking up 6th after
you hear things like that all the time, but all the sudden it became clear, this is true, let s find out what it was. for a period of minutes and not just a couple, the thinking was that a plane had crashed into a building. we heard the sirens here in our building just building and building. my office is pretty high up without being specific, we could hear the sirens and they were louder than normal city sirens. they seem to be coming from all directions and sure enough, this is what it turned out to be. they are at the equitable building, at 51st street, they evacuated and it still on, streets are closed around it. they two crossed rates, the eastbound street and 50th street, those are both close because they are packed with emergency vehicles. there is a picture out in front of our building which is sixth avenue and i want to show