Had is the heart of tourists of new york city. A lot of the tourists are amused by this, a lot of the residents like myself and family are annoyed. Hopefully this is nothing more than a nuisance, some elderly residents for some people who need to get up and down, elevators, this has been a problem, we know the police and fire responded to dozens of calls about elevator outages. Im looking out at the nearby buildings. I see, first of all, the moon starting to light up new york city. Second, some neighbors bringing out canned ems, finding ways to create light. In some office buildings, you see some of the expensive buildings turning on their backup generators. For the most part, the city of new york, midtown west from fifth avenue over to the hudson river is in the dark. The 70s, over to 72nd street. You see people walking out with their cell phones, using them as flashlights. At least for a few hours, people will have that as a backup source of power. When youre talking to people around there, people worried, are they concerned, what is the mindset . I think its mostly intrigue, but a little bit of concern. I spoke with my neighbors, i live in a high rise building here in columbus circle. They had to walk 15 flights up the stairs with the dog. Thats no more than an annoyance. Certainly my wife who is 8 months pregnant the is concerned about having to go to the hospital. Certainly we can walk over. The tourists who dont know how to get around. The broadway shows have been cancelled. People who had plans on a saturday night in new york city, are seeing plans get screwed up. Were seeing people direct traffic, therein werent enough crossing guards right away to do so. We see residents step up to the challenge. Let me read the latest update we had from con edison, this is from a little while ago. The latest we have right now is that con edison is responding to extensive Power Outages affecting approximately 42,000 customers on the west side of manhattan, the company will provide updates as they become available. Company crews are working now to repair the problem. Con edison advises in the affected areas, for people to switch off or unplug electrical appliances, to avoid potential damage to those appliances when power is restored, thats Important Information for those who may be listening to us right now on the radio devices. I want to bring chad myers in to give us more information about the scope of these Power Outages, chad . Really from 72, 72nd street Upper West Side, all the way down to 42, 42nd, somewhere in between, i heard some power on on 51st street, all the way from the hudson river over to about avenue of the americas or sixth avenue, a fairly small tight little area here. But a very touristy area. The most touristy area in the city of new york, right through here. Central park through here, all the way down through lower manhattan. Battery park, power is completely on there. Its the area up near the park that is the most affected. Lets zoom in and well drill down on this, to show you the people that are out of power. I think brian hit it really on the head. Sure, 40,000 customers are without power, what does that mean if theres only one meter to a building, all of a sudden there are many more people on that one meter, con ed only believes its only saying theres one customer affected. Clearly there are more than 42,000 People Living in this area. With the elevators in the high rises and hotels, there will be a lot of people inconvenienced here, here are the outages here, heres central park. This would be broadway all the way down to times square. And if we zoom in, we can show you how many buildings are here. How many high rises are in the area, and how many people are truly affected. Many businesses probably dont count. And there are a lot of Office Spaces in here, and because its a saturday night, hopefully nobodys there working. Thats the good news here, all the elevators that did get stopped if they werent on emergency power, those people are being taken off slowly i assume. Because they have to get from one elevator to the next. There have been many elevators in the high rise part of midtown manhattan. That is a big concern, all of us can imagine being in one of those elevators when the power goes out, and how scary that would be. Chad myers thank you for that update. Shimon prokupecz is with us. I know youve been in touch with officials from nypd and the Fire Department here, what are you learning . The most important is for people to know that everything is under control. The nypd, the Fire Department, obviously responding to different calls, people needing rescue, are stuck in elevatoele they may not be able to get to everyone. Unfortunately, were over 2 hours into this, and there are many people stuck in elevators. Thats just going to happen. One of the Biggest Issues, i think, is actually crowd control. A lot of people on the streets of manhattan in times square. Tourists, people who cant get back into their homes, and others are just Walking Around and noticing, and watching whats going on. The Biggest Issue for them right now is trying to control the crowds, the people, that have gathered all around these areas, specifically in times square. On the west side of manhattan. Thats what theyre dealing with, and the cars, because a lot of the traffic lights are out. So far, no injuries have been reported, no ones been seriously injured, there are people being taken to hospitals. People who live in high rise buildings, that are on oxygen. The Fire Department and the nypd has responded to those apartments to make sure that people who are in need of oxygen are getting oxygen. And if they need to, theyre taking them to hospitals. And also, the citys office of Emergency Management obviously is coordinating the entire effort. And as of right now, people that ive talked to, everything seems to be under control. They seem to have a handle on it, and theyre waiting for con edison to restore some of the power. After the subway system, even once power is restored, its going to take some time to get the subways running normal, normal again. Theyre going to have to run these trains through, make sure there are no issues, right now, for the most part, people are safe, i think most people are out and about, noticing whats going on, kind of want to mingle. You know, new york is an interesting place, people get out and they start helping each other. People are at corners helping traffic, and stoplights, acting as crossing guards in some way, so its definitely an interesting time and its definitely something that the nypd has done before. The Fire Department has done before, there were other major blackouts like this, in new york city. Theyre dealing with all this this, i think most people, whats important to know is things are under control, its a huge inconvenience and obviously hopefully here soon the power will be restored. Okay, thank you. Stand by with us, you mentioned the subway, just want to read the latest update for the transit authority. It says there are limited service on the numbered lines. The 1, 2, 3 on the west side. Also, the 7 between manhattan and queens, however, they say our entire system is affected by this con edison outage. In manhattan, the bus is your best bet. Stay tuned that is the latest, we spoke with mayor de blasio, who said they didnt believe anyone was still trapped on the subway, that was good news, as shimon just mentioned, police and fire are mobilizing to do some crowd control, they believe they have everything under control at the moment. Let me bring in cnns law enfitnessment analyst and former fbi ssi josh campbell. Your reaction to what shimon just reported. A massive effort nunned way from Emergency Services. We heard there were people possibly trapped in elevators. There are a number of intersections that required Traffic Control. Nypd spokesman tell us the nypd Strategic Response group is being deployed to this area. This is their augment team, those assets are on the way. We heard this is possibly accidental. Reports of a manhole fire. Were not out of the woods yet, as we look at the prolonged nature of this, were going on now almost two hours, and were seeing these Power Outages, the electric grid system is bised on redundancies, the reason its rare you have a single point of failure. Does that kuralt time . Power surges, faulty equipment. System overloads and the like, the reason we dont experience them is because you have redundancy. However a prolonged incident means one of two things, either the system has been stressed to the max and the possible damage is so extreme, or authorities havent been able to pinpoint its location of the point failure, none of those are good, as this goes on, it will be so important for authorities to continue to communicate to the public whats going on, obviously it will be difficult for those who are impacted to turn on the television and the like, but people have mobil phones, they have the cnn app, for example, its going to be so important for authorities to continue to communicate that information, to manage expectations, to try to ensure the situation is being handled d correctly. The mayor had been in touch with authorities, they could not give us a time frame in terms of how long they anticipated this would be a problem, that the outage would be on going. He did say, however, they do not believe. What i want to make sure, its something within the normal electric grid, no other kind of external influence here, this appears to be something that just went wrong in the way they transmit power to address the demand. He doesnt believe anything nefarious, or it was a kind of foul play involved. Although he said it is still early in the investigation. Let me go back to Paolo Sandoval on the streets of new york for us. Youve been talking to tourists, what are you hearing . How are they reacting now . First, let me give you a sense of where we are, were here in midtown manhattan, about 3 or 4 blocks south, youre going to end up in times square. You would run into central park. Youre looking down 7th avenue and west 51st street, its incredible when you see how dark it is, were standing on the perimeter line of the affected area and the places that arent affected, a gift shop, just a few feet away from me is all lit up. You see the gift shop across the street is completely in the dark, weve been hearing from touri tourists, they are heart broken, many of them are going to get to see the show, really, as were fairly recent new yorkers here, you and i, weve lived here long enough to say, its hard to impress a new yorker. When you hear from those who are from here, as you see here, a lifelong resident of new york, whats your reaction, and whats happening on the streets of your city right now . Well, im at work, because i work at the sheraton times square hotel. When this happened, i was at my desk with all my coworkers, all of a sudden the lights went out. We didnt know what we were doing. We talked to the guests and made sure theyre okay. All my coworkers, everyone from the sheraton New York Times square is taking care of the guests as best we can. This is what we do, we take care of the tourists. How about some of the guests on the higher levels. Were there any efforts to get them down safely . We did everything properly, we made sure we dispatched everyone out and got everyone out safely. Ultimate hospitality for you. All day. This is a quick dinner break for you. Did you have a hard time finding any restaurants that are actually open . Well, from what i was told, from 72nd street coming up this way was a transformer, we didnt know where the transformer was blowing out. We kept getting calls from airlines and stuff. What we do, we do best. We make sure everything is taken care of. For people seeing around the world, just so they understand the significance of what were looking at here, new yorkers, this is something that is extremely rare to see. We always do good under pressure, were good with this, weve been through enough, so we know how to deal with pressure, and this is what we trained for, when we work at hotels, every day of our life. Thank you for taking the time, and shifting into rescue mode. Ill let you have your delicious dinner. Thank you. Thank you for your time. You do get those stories, spirits are certainly high, there is some laughter, smiles, theres also concern, right . There are people that are wondering how theyre going to be able to make it home. I live in brooklyn, thats a big question. Either with the traffic or the subway lines, how will some of the people actually move . There are some subway lines that we hear that are operating. Some of the bus service discontinued. Some of them are completely packed with people. In the meantime, a lot of the recommendations people are getting, soak this in in, take this in, stay in a safe place. And if you can, find a cool place to wait this out until the lights get back on again. For a lot of these tourists, its adding to their story, to their visit of new york city. They have another thing, they can tell their friends, remember when. As i look behind you, carpet help but notice it seems like a lot of people are packed on the sidewalks. Are people waiting outside buildings to see when they may be able to go back in. Are they more just looking, kind of looky lous, looking to see whats going on outside . Whats the sense . Its really a combination of both, right . Before you came to us, i spoke to this gentleman, a young man, daniel. He landed here just a couple days ago from the u. K. This is certainly now part of the experience for him. He has his camera in hand, hes taking shots, and soaking all of this is, in because he does understand the significance of this, the city of new york. That state is something that is fascinating to many, to answer your question, many people, thats all they can do is walk down the sidewalk. Talk to each other, check out the sights, snap a picture or two, and hold on to the story, because it is something they wont be forgetting any time soon. Okay, Paolo Sandoval for us, in midtown manhattan, when the power is still out, going on two hours now. With this power outage affecting 42,000 customers at last check. The last update as theyre working to restore power and identify what went wrong. Stay with us, youre watching cnn. Much more of our live coverage just ahead. Booking. Com offers free so bookers can book now. And ask their boss later. [do you want breakfast or no . ] free cancellations [definitely breakfast. ] how good is that . Be a booker at booking. Com. We run right into these crises, and we do not leave until normalcy is restored. Wed been working for days on a site in a storm devastated area. A family pulled up. It was a mom and her kids. Everything they had had been washed away. The only thing that brought any kind of solace was the ability to hand her a device so she could call her family and let them know that she was okay. vo there for you when it matters most. Join us and get up to 650 when you switch. Thats verizon. Beauty editors have tried everything. In search of a whiter smile. Their choice . 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Weve seen flickers, the lights went out. No lights, no air conditioning on this hot july 9th for some people. In the theaters that have had to now shut down tonight. No productions and certain broadway shows. Ironically tonight is the 42nd anniversary of the famous 1977 blackout. We know some people have been trapped in elevators, the new York City Police and Fire Department are still working to get all of them out. And to monitor what they call crowd control. I spoke to bill de blasio, hes not in the city tonight, hes campaigning in woot waterloo, i. We are getting the preliminary reports, it appears to be a transmission problem. Con ed is working to address it now. Your numbers are right, at this moment, the information we have is about 40,000 customers affected. All of our First Responders have been deployed now, folks who are in elevators will be responded to by our Vice President , our Police Department. So this situation is being addressed very rapidly, a lot of personnel being sent to the west side of manhattan to address it. What appears to be, anna, is a specific transmission problem and that means hopefully it can be resolved in a relatively quick time. You tweeted out there was a manhole fire, is that believed to be the cause . Were still getting more information. And this is very early on in the situation, anna, were waiting to get all the facts, what im trying to make clear is, its something within the normal electrical grid that didnt work. No other kind of external influence here, this appears to be something that went wrong in the way they transmit power from one part of the city to the other, to address demand. Con ed will give us an update soon on resolving it. In the meantime, our focus is making sure that anyone has immediate needs, our First Responders will get to them right away. Are you confident nothing nefarious is going on here . At this point, its very important to say when were an hour or so into a situation, we should never overstate the facts. I talked to our Police Commissioner and