As the heat index pushed past 110 degrees on July 3, Con Edison cut power on purpose. The company temporarily shut off electric service to roughly 9,800 residential and commercial customers in Southwest Queens, a deliberate move to make repairs faster and stop outages from spreading wider, according to amNewYork and Con Edison’s own press releases.
A few hours later, the utility was handing out bags of dry ice on a Bushwick corner. Con Edison set up a distribution site and a mobile information center at the intersection of Troutman Street and Central Avenue in Brooklyn, running from 7:30 p.m. until 10 p.m. or until supplies ran out, the company said in a release. A second site ran in Queens at Resorts World Casino Lot C, 110-00 Rockaway Blvd., from 5:30 to 10 p.m. If your fridge is dead, dry ice keeps your food from spoiling until the power comes back.
The shutoff in Southwest Queens hit portions of Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill and South Ozone Park, Con Edison said, blaming equipment problems caused by extreme heat and heavy demand for power. Con Edison told amNewYork there were no specific estimates for when power would return, and Howard Beach alone accounted for roughly 2,500 of the affected customers.
The shutoff was only part of the response. Con Edison cut voltage by 8 percent across wide stretches of Brooklyn and Queens, a maneuver that put nearly 400,000 customers into zones where power was intentionally dialed down to avoid full blackouts, amNewYork reported. The affected areas included big chunks of Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village and Forest Hills in Queens, plus Bay Ridge, Borough Park, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Flatbush and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. Residents in those zones were urged to shut off unnecessary lights and air conditioners and hold off on running washers, dryers, microwaves and dishwashers until later in the night.
The heat was the reason for all of it. Temperatures hit 100 degrees in many parts of the city, and with humidity the real-feel numbers landed closer to 110 or 115, amNewYork reported, calling it one of the worst heatwaves the city had seen in a decade. When everyone cranks the AC at once, demand spikes, equipment overheats and things fail. Con Edison spent the day trying to stop that chain reaction.
By 11 p.m., Con Edison said its crews had restored power to more than 93,000 customers hit by the extreme weather. More than 30,700 were still in the dark, a count pushed higher by severe thunderstorms that rolled through that night and knocked out overhead lines across the five boroughs and Westchester County. As of 10 p.m., the remaining outages were concentrated in Staten Island with more than 6,000 customers out, Queens with more than 15,000, and Brooklyn with more than 7,000, per the company.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani echoed Con Edison’s plea to conserve, urging New Yorkers to set their ACs to 78 degrees and power off non-essential electronics to protect the grid, amNewYork reported. Con Edison points to the hours between 2 and 10 p.m. as the highest-demand window and says cutting back then eases strain on the system.
New York City and Westchester County cooling centers were activated during the heatwave. New Yorkers without AC can find the nearest one at NYC.gov/beattheheat or by calling 311. Con Edison also warned people to stay away from downed wires, which may be live, and said its crews guarding them may be in unmarked cars but will always carry Con Edison identification.
Anyone who loses power can report it and check restoration status at coned.com/reportoutage, through the Con Edison app, or by calling 1-800-75-CONED. Live outage counts and restoration estimates are posted on the Con Edison outage map.
