After thousands stranded on NYC subway in power outage, Hochul demands answers
NEW YORK -- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is calling for a full review of the power outage that left thousands of subway riders stranded Wednesday night in Brooklyn.
The MTA said 3,500 passengers on two F trains had to be rescued after power was lost near the Jay Street-MetroTech and Hoyt-Schermerhorn Street stations in Downtown Brooklyn around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The outage sparked widespread delays and changes on the A, C, F and G lines, and officials said evacuations took nearly three hours.
Some riders said it was chaos underground, as they were pulled from cars by the FDNY and helped above ground. At least one person had to be taken to the hospital, but there was no word on their condition.
"Make sure it cannot happen in the future"
The governor called the situation "unacceptable," and she said she wants to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"New Yorkers deserve a world-class subway system, and thousands of commuters experienced unacceptable service issues last night due to an electrical issue. No one deserves to be trapped underground for two hours, or face such significant delays when trying to commute home from work," Hochul said in a statement Thursday. "For that reason, I have directed the MTA to do a full review with Con Edison of this incident to determine the cause of the delay and make sure it cannot happen in the future. We must invest in the system's state of good repair and fix problems that should have been taken care of decades ago."
MTA and Con Edison officials say they are working together to try and figure out what happened.
"I get it, on the train, it's cold, it's dark. But I'll tell you one shining glimmer of light, the amount of Twitter messages that we got in relation to one of our conductors... who did an amazing job of walking the cars and comforting our customers and making sure that they were all staying safe," said New York City Transit President Demetrius Crichlow.
"There's a 90-year-old electrical substation that had a fire and an explosion of some kind, because the door was off the hinges. That speaks to the urgency of making the investments to the very old pieces of our system," added MTA Chair Janno Lieber.
Service was restored around midnight, and crews worked overnight to finish repairs on the F line. For the latest updates, visit new.mta.info.
