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NYC blackout disrupts Upper Manhattan and Harlem, Internet jokes 'by December we might be in Walking Dead mode'

The outage happened around 5:15 am in the morning, and it returned shortly before 6:00 am

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: About 130,000 people in New York City woke up to darkness on Friday, August 7, after a string of outages in various neighborhoods. The brief power outage has a big impact on Upper Manhattan. It also affected areas, like Upper West Side, Upper East Side, and Harlem.

According to reports, the outage happened around 5:15 am in the morning, and it returned shortly before 6:00 a.m. “We are investigating a problem on our transmission system that caused three networks in Manhattan to lose their electric supply at about 5:13 this morning. The supply has been restored to those networks on the Upper West Side, Harlem and the Upper East Side,” Con Edison, the utility company serving New York City, said in a statement.

Con Ed spokesman Philip O’Brien told the New York Post that the reason behind the blackout is being investigated. The company tweeted, “Crews are working 24/7 to continue making restorations to all customers affected by #StormIsaias. We urge everyone to stay away from downed wires, they may be live.” According to the utility company’s website, nearly 42,097 customers have still been living in dark across the Big Apple since earlier this week. 

It has also been reported that the outage affected subway service while disrupting the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, N, Q, and R trains. The A, B, C, and D lines also got disturbed due to the blackout. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) said in a tweet: “Expect delays as we are getting reports of power outages in some parts of uptown Manhattan. This is also affecting stations and third-rail power.”

New Yorkers shared a number of photos and videos on Twitter, injecting some dark humor into the matter. One user wrote: “Who had #NYC #blackout on their 2020 bingo card?” along with a GIF. Replying to this, a second user said, “I did I think I named about 20 things that were going to happen. I told my family I have a plan because, by December we might be in full #TWD Walking Dead mode.”

Another resident took to the social media platform and shared a picture of the blackout while writing: “@ConEdison there is a #BlackOut in Upper West Side by Harlem. Is that only in #UpperWestSide and #Harlem? #ConEdison #NewYorcCity.” While a user named Dominique Frazier shared a video and wrote, “#Blackout Harlem RN #NYPD #ConEdison it’s pitch Black.” “Complete #blackout in NYC. I see people with flashlights inside their apartments, an emergency vehicle is idling nearby, and we’ve got a steady soft rain falling here,” tweeted a user named Upchurch.

One user on Twitter seemingly not from the Big Apple joked, “NYC #blackout for 20 minutes and y’all flip send some love to CT we’ve been without power for going on four days,” while another added: “Does NYC typically not lose power? Here in Ilinois it happens twice a week lol.” A third user seemed very upset with the power outage as they tweeted, “#BlackOut in New York! I literally just paid my electricity #harlem.” “Black Out in NYC #blackout 2020 really is thriving,” added the fourth person