At a meeting organized by Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx), representatives from Con Edison as well as residents from buildings on Johnson, Palisade and Independence Avenues and the Assemblyman discussed the issue of chronic power outages in the South Riverdale area. As a result of the meeting, Con Ed has agreed to add an additional power supply to the area that will decrease both the number and duration of outages in the future. They plan to install the additional power source by the end of the year.

“This is a major step in the right direction by Con Ed, which will help thousands of residents who have had to deal with this issue for too long,” Dinowitz said. “While it still doesn’t address the issue of burying the power lines, adding an additional power source will make the situation better, so I am pleased that our meeting had a positive outcome.”

Since July of 2010 there have been 16 power outages reported by 8 buildings in South Riverdale, with outages lasting anywhere from less than an hour to over 167 hours during Hurricane Sandy. Many of the outages occurred on days when the weather was far from inclement; residents of the area lose power on sunny days as often as they do during storms. The meeting was called to initially request that Con Ed bury the power lines in that area, which would ultimately solve the power outage issues entirely.