NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of Con Edison customers in the city remain in the dark as crews work to restore power following the impact of Tropical Storm Isaias earlier this week.
According to Con Ed, crews have "reached the halfway mark in restorations" with power brought back on for more than 85 percent of affected customers in Brooklyn, 74 percent of affected customers in Staten Island, and 10,495 customers in the Bronx.
As of Thursday morning, Con Ed was reporting the following number of customers are still without power:
- Bronx: 18,763
- Brooklyn: 3,041
- Manhattan: 67
- Queens: 35,782
- Staten Island: 13,189
It's the second-worst storm in the company's history in terms of outages, behind Sandy.
They say the rain Monday night loosened the ground and the number of downed trees is making it harder for them to respond.
Still, the utility is facing backlash from upset neighbors and elected leaders for its response to restore power after the storm.
On Staten Island, residents have been told the majority of service will be back by Sunday.
City Councilman Steven Matteo says the lack of information is frustrating.
"There was an extreme delay of crews getting out to the problematic areas in my district and quite frankly all of Staten Island for restoration.To add insult to injury, they're not giving any etr's - estimated time of restoration. And that's providing my constituents on Staten Island with even more frustration because they have no information at all," Matteo said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday said he will launch an investigation into the state's largest utilities.
The Department of Public Service has now been ordered to investigate Verizon, Consolidated Edison, New York State Electric & Gas, PSEG Long Island, Central Hudson Gas & Electric and Orange and Rockland Utilities.
A state of emergency was declared for all five boroughs Wednesday.
Gov. Cuomo said the state of emergency declaration includes all of the city's five counties - New York, Kings, Queens, Richmond and Bronx - as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, and several counties upstate.