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Power Restored to Final NYCHA Developments Left in the Dark by Sandy

By Aidan Gardiner | November 14, 2012 11:12am | Updated on November 14, 2012 6:32pm
 Contractors were setting up enormous, truck-mounted boilers and generators outside the Red Hook Houses Monday afternoon, Nov. 12, 2012.
Contractors were setting up enormous, truck-mounted boilers and generators outside the Red Hook Houses Monday afternoon, Nov. 12, 2012.
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DNAinfo/Alan Neuhauser

NEW YORK CITY — Power has been restored to the last of the public housing buildings that went dark when Hurricane Sandy roared into the city two weeks ago, officials said.

The housing projects in areas like Red Hook and Coney Island were inundated with flood waters that made their internal wiring dangerous to energize, said officials of Con Edison and the New York City Housing Authority.

So while many NYCHA developments had their power restored in the days after the killer storm hit the city, residents in those areas worst hit remained in the dark for weeks.

NYCHA put the lights back on in the remaining 18 of the 402 affected NYCHA buildings Tuesday evening, and said the public developments across the city all had power.

"For now, it is 100 percent with electricity," said Sheila Stainback, a NYCHA spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

Some of the developments, however, still don't have heat or hot water.

Approximately 380 buildings, where about 77,000 tenants live, lost heat and hot water after the super storm pummeled the city. Roughly 18,000 tenants in 94 buildings on Tuesday still didn’t have those utilities, according to NYCHA

Hurricane Sandy also left elevators out of service at 699 NYCHA buildings across the city. As of Tuesday, elevators at roughly 90 percent of those buildings had been repaired restored, and the agency said it is working to bring elevator service to the rest of the affected buildings.