'I knew I wasn’t tripping': New Yorkers face power outage as footage shows smoke at Brooklyn power plant

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: An unexpected power interruption plunged parts of New York into darkness, eliciting a surge of responses from individuals who sensed that "something went wrong."

The brief outage took place on Thursday night, December 14, and during this time, videos started circulating on social media, depicting smoke emerging from a power plant located in Brooklyn.

What caused power outage in New York?

On Thursday night, numerous New Yorkers experienced a short power disruption, with some individuals getting stuck in elevators. Smoke was observed emanating from a power plant in Brooklyn.

Just before the stroke of midnight, several residents of the Big Apple reported flickering lights, while others mentioned disruptions to their internet service.

A video circulated on social media depicted smoke billowing from a Con Edison substation located in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn. The police confirmed receiving a 911 call reporting an explosion at the site.

Employees of Con Ed were reportedly working on the restoration of a transmission line at the Farragut Substation on John Street when an interruption occurred, leading to a power surge across the city, according to the NYPD.

Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

Con Ed acknowledged an issue at one of their substations in the borough, which resulted in "a dip or surge in power" that was noticed by their customers, per New York Post. 

"A fault on a high-tension transmission line occurred at a Con Edison substation in Brooklyn at approximately 11:55 pm last night," the energy company stated.

"Customers may have experienced a dip or surge in power at that time. Crews are investigating and working to make necessary repairs."

Consolidated Edison, Inc, one of the country's leading energy-delivery companies owned by investors, reported an estimated $16 billion in yearly revenues and held assets worth $69 billion as of the end of 2022, per the website.

Power outage extended beyond the five boroughs?

According to posts by customers on social media, the power outage spread beyond the five boroughs. 

"Sooo are we just gonna pretend that there wasn’t a two-second blackout across the entire city…" a user with the handle SomeBrooklynGuy wrote on X.

Other users responded to his tweet, indicating that the brief power fluctuation was also experienced in Northern New Jersey, Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley.

Is there any suspicion of criminal activity involved?

Fortunately, police reported that no hospitals or critical care facilities in the city were disrupted.

However, a spokesperson for the FDNY stated that they were attending to "various" locations throughout the city due to reports of power outages and elevators getting stuck.

Following the "Con Edison power problem," the LIRR reported that elevators and escalators at Grand Central Terminal had ceased functioning.

The police have stated that no criminal activity is suspected in this incident.

Public reaction to the brief electric outage

One person tweeted, "I knew something went wrong, lights flickered, crazy… just saw that Netflix movie too smh." 

A second user wrote, "I knew I wasn’t tripping."

"i had to run quick here cs i thought we was under attack," added a third one.

One person recounted, "I was trapped on Q Train 5867 downtown. They held on between 42 and 34 with no announcements for a solid 20 mins."

A user referenced the recent incident of a six-story building partially collapsing in New York City and commented, "What is going on in NYC? Buildings collapsing, fires in the Bronx, power outages (disruption of critical infrastructure) in Brooklyn. Crazy!"

"Now they’re gonna make “leave the world behind” into a documentary," mentioned another.

An individual shared a screenshot from their system of the Netflix film ‘Leave the World Behind’ and penned, "As i’m watching this movie .. i just bugged out. living in a simulation fr."

"It happened twice. I thought we were about to be in “leave the world behind," noted another. 

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.