Shortly after 8 p.m., Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that 30,000 customers in Brooklyn would have their power turned off so Consolidated Edison could make necessary repairs to “prevent a bigger outage.”
“It is the third day of the heat wave, so the system is really baking at this point,” said Alfonso Quiroz, a spokesman for Con Edison.
PSEG Long Island had wrestled with its own power failure Saturday night that left thousands without power in the Rockaways.
By Sunday night, both companies were asking customers across neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens to limit the use of electrical appliances. Con Edison said it had reduced voltage by 8% in affected areas to protect equipment and maintain service as repairs were made.
Quiroz said Con Edison had hit “record-high power demand” for a weekend.
De Blasio also said Sunday night that the city had sent emergency crews to aid a nursing home that was using generator power and two adult care facilities that had no power.
Fire officials said the soaring temperatures also may have contributed to a Queens fire that killed a mother and daughter.
With temperatures over 90 degrees Fahrenheit by 8 a.m., about 100 firefighters fought the heat and the flames Sunday morning as a blaze tore through a house in Richmond Hill, Queens, killing a mother and her 7-year-old daughter, and critically injuring the woman’s two teenage sons. Fire Department officials said they were investigating whether the fire was linked to the family’s air conditioner, which neighbors said was located on the first floor.
The police said Silvia Umana, 51, lived in the home with her daughter, Lupe Perez, and two sons, whom neighbors identified as Gilbert, 19, and Gabriel, 15. The younger boy escaped out a second-story window and was rescued by firefighters.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.