By Patrick Hedlund
DNAinfo News Editor
LOWER EAST SIDE — Approximately 340 apartments were left without electricity following a power outage on the Lower East Side on Monday, authorities said.
The cause was an underground electrical cable burnout, which knocked out power about 10:30 a.m. at a pair of buildings in the Alfred E. Smith Houses, a development run by the New York City Housing Authority, a Con Edison spokesperson confirmed.
A neabry elementary/middle school, PS 126, also lost power, closing the school early for the day, the spokesperson said.
"It blew, like a fuse or something," said Red Minor, a resident of 20 Catherine Slip, one of the buildings affected by the outage.
PS 126, at 80 Catherine Slip, and the residential building at 10 Catherine Slip also lost power.
"Every time it floods it does that," Minor added. "This isn't the first time it's happened."
Lights started going back on in the affected buildings around 6 p.m. Monday with the aid of a generator provided by NYCHA.
Full power was restored around 8:30 p.m. Monday night, with further repairs to the damaged cables planned to continue Tuesday, a Con Edison spokesperson said
Aixa Torres, president of the Alfred E. Smith Houses tenants' association, expressed anger at what she saw as a pattern of neglect.
"You don't live here for free, we pay rent," Torres said. "We've got a lot of hard-working people. We have a right to decent housing...This is ridiculous."
She added that another building in the complex, at 182 South St., had been without gas since January.
"I've had tenants eating in restaurants for four months," Torres said. "I don't want to tell [Con Edison] how to run their company, but I do want to tell them, that's not how you treat customers."
Fire responders helped remove people stuck in elevators in each of the residential buildings on Monday, an FDNY source said. Torres added that residents with serious health issues requiring the aid of electrical devices were transported to area hospitals.
