Governor Hochul called the disruption “unacceptable” and told pilots who were stranded: “The system has failed you.” He is now calling for an internal investigation into the failure.
The series of events began at 8:25 p.m., when a Con Ed power outage forced the subway signal system to change for backup. That secondary power supply was maintained until 9:10 p.m., when a sad MTA spokesman mysteriously failed, disabling the signaling of all numbered trains and the L train.
An MTA spokesman said the disruption did not affect the third subway railway, which feeds individual cars. This means that people trapped on trains still had lights and air conditioning on, until some pilots opted to self-evacuate to the tunnels.
This added to the chaos, forcing the MTA to cut off power to four trains grouped around 149th St. Grand Concourse, leaving these riders in the dark without air conditioning.
Service was fully restored at 1:29 a.m. Monday morning.
At a news conference Monday morning in front of MTA headquarters in Lower Manhattan, Governor Hochul said more than 500 people had to be evacuated or chose to self-evacuate, choosing to leave the trains on their own. account, navigating dark tunnels. With the third railway still active, he said it was “dangerous” and urged people not to do so if it happened in the future.
Around the time of the outage, cell phone video showed a sewer fire in Long Island City, Queens. Governor Hochul said there was no reason to believe a fire caused the disruption, but that it was being investigated.
The video of the interior of station 149 of St. Grand Concourse showed FDNY firefighters lifting people from the tracks to the station platform. The riders told Eyewitness News that they had little communication from the MTA.
“They kept saying they don’t know what’s going on. But for an hour and 36 minutes we got stuck on the train. A long time. Kids, kids, no water, nothing,” one woman said.
Now, the MTA will conduct an “after action” report to determine why the system has failed.
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