Co-op City Electricty Restored After Power Outage Affecting Over 50,000

"Early Thursday, after midnight, the Co-op City power-generation unit went down and caused a power outage throughout the complex," Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Christopher Miller told Habitat.  "We worked with Con Ed, with Co-op City management, with the NYPD and with the FDNY to get the power restored."

Vernon Cooper, general manager of Co-op City's management company, RiverBay, told DNAInfo.com yesterday, "We had an incident of a power surge …that caused us to lose power throughout the entire development. The cause of that power surge is still to be determined." Cooper did not respond to a Habitat request for comment.

"There were 27 residents extricated from elevators throughout the complex," Miller said. "Separate from that, seven people were treated by EMS, and four of them were taken to local area hospitals with minor injuries" and because of need for their electrical medical devices such as oxygen equipment.

Power began to be restored by "a little after 3 a.m.," Miller said. "Everyone was restored by a little after 4."

Con Ed and Congeneration

Though Co-op City supplies its own power with an onsite gas-turbine cogeneration plant, "Con Ed is the backup. While Co-op City tried to figure out what happened to their power generation, Con Ed supplied Co-op City with power."

"We're there in support capacity until they repair the problems on their side," Con Ed spokesperson D. Joy Faber told DNAInfo. "They’ll be back on their own power supply."

Co-op City produces its own power using a combined-cycle gas-turbine cogeneration plant with two 13-megawatt combustion gas turbine generators and heat recovery steam generators and one 14-megawatt steam turbine and generator replacement, according to the project's engineering consultant, the Manhattan firm Parsons Brinckerhoff.

David Stone, RiveryBay's chief engineer, told DNAInfo yesterday that one generator had been restored and the other was expected to be operational by Thursday afternoon. "It's a limited number of components that may have failed," he said. "We still have to investigate."

Built between 1968 and 1973 as Mitchell-Lama housing, Co-op City – with over 50,000 residents, eight parking garages, 15 houses of worship, 12 schools, several day care centers, four basketball courts, five baseball diamonds and an adjacent shopping center with a 13-screen movie theater, department stores and a supermarket – is the largest single residential development in the country, according to the 2005 documentary A Walk Through The Bronx.

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