leland: this is a "fox news" alert and i'm leland vittert in new york city. this is a theater now plagued with dark this. the massive power outage has taken over the entire west side of midtown from 42nd street up past columbus circle into the 70. live pictures right now the only reason you can see what's happening there as the fdny and nypd begin their coordination efforts is because of the emergency there. our camera crews it turns quite literally pitch black. 44,000 people, customers that is, without power.

that means there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people affect it by this. we are awaiting a news conference from fdny and nypd on what's going on here. this started about three hours and 15 minutes ago at 6:45. people were trapped on subways for at least an hour and we understand there were multiple rescues from elevators around manhattan. let's take a look around manhattan from a number of our cameras. the upper right-hand corner of your screen is sixth avenue. will we look at sixth avenue and it's empty. we are told they have stopped traffic on a number of the street to allow convoys of firetrucks and rescue personnel to move in and try and go building by building to search for folks who might still be trapped on a very hot night raid on the bottom right-hand corner of your screen we see a picture of times square. so many of the iconic doll

boards in times square are now dark because of this blackout and there are tens of thousands of people who have been pushed out onto the streets not only from hotels but also we are told from broadway shows and restaurants where people are told to leave and leave now. those were the lucky ones who are not stuck to the new york fire department trying to get to those who are stuck. as you see the azbef and m subway lines stock. tom von essen is the former commissioner of the new york fire department and he was the commissioner during the 2003 blackout. we are now 42 years to the day from the 1977 blackout and we bring you win. thankfully this seems to be no less inconvenient or nonetheless

dangerous but perhaps not as widespread. >> it looks like that's the big problem they have right now whether or not they are going to control it, isolated and get it back on in the next couple of hours or so. i guess con-ed has issues with trying to cut back on power in some places so when they do get the power back on they can manage it. i guess the press conference is coming up. soon it should be enlightening with con-ed having a better handle on exactly how bad it is now and in the next couple of hours. leland: as you know from being the commissioner in 9/11 a time like this post-9/11 the her first fears go to that of terrorism or some kind of nefarious action. the nypd counterterrorism

putting out a tweet saying conditt is working to restore power on the west side of manhattan. nypd and the fdny responded to calls. counterterrorism units remain deployed at these locations. we are three hours into this tom. the firefighters know where everyone is trapped is or in so many of these older residential buildings are they having to go building by building and checked the elevators? what is the protocol? >> no, they don't know. the hotel emergency management has boosted operations. they have good records now and they keep updating them, the people that need electricity because of medical issues so when things like this happened they try to get to those folks to make sure they are okay but are they perfect? no, people move and they don't know about it yet so it's not a

perfect system but they really do a good job. they really rely on the people in the building to look out for these folks that need medical help. leland: is you just pointed out we just got no information we don't know whether this is, the blackout is growing or it originally was that con-ed is now saying 61,000, that's an additional 17,000 from the 44 they told us. 61,000 customers without power. that translates into hundreds of thousands if not millions of people because so many of these buildings, one building represents a customer. evidently they are saying that this was triggered by a manhole fire. in this day and age is hard to believe that one manhole fire in the west side of new york city leaves half a of manhattan or one third of manhattan in the

dark. >> yeah and it's not just that one manhole. it's just the start of it and it goes in sequence and that's the problem they are having right now trying to get it back on. as one goes off line comes back on and another one pops so the issue is very complicated right now and is the number grows that's what makes me more concerned that they don't have a handle on it. hopefully they will give us some better information. they don't want people to panic but its 40,000 so quite an increase. you would hope that the numbers would be going in the other direction. leland: we are hearing from con-ed and they are saying the time of restoration is 1:00 a.m. they are giving a press conference and we haven't heard much more. this is coming from one of their web sites. as we look up fifth avenue sixth

avenue and streets have been shut down. it are cruise out on the street that of seeing convoys of firetrucks moving in from some of the other boroughs? talk about the contingency plan three hours then. what's happening, who is moving, how many firetrucks and crews are available to check on the people you were talking about? >> you know the fire department is pretty big. they have over 400 units so they are going fill in. as a unit in manhattan becomes unavailable they will bring in from parliament from the bronx they will fill-in for harlem and from riverdale they will fill-in for harlem. it's as cascading effect that all of the boroughs are like that. queens and staten island everyone is pitching and working

their way towards manhattan covering for each other. we have got plenty of units and plenty of people that can do the job, plenty of rescue units and squads with special skills and special talents and special equipment. they are all involved at this point. leland: we have heard about elevator rescues. take us through an understandably there would be perhaps hundreds of elevator rescues with people stuck in a power outage like this. these are the larger buildings in manhattan that so many of the residential buildings on eighth and ninth avenues and tenth avenue on the west side that are older better in the dark where there is no emergency generators and there is no emergency air-conditioning, how do these elevator rescues works? what is happening as they go elevator by elevator? >> let's say the other building that is 10 stories and you have people stuck between the fourth and the fifth floor. our guys will get there and go

to the top floor where the controls are. they try to manually move that elevator with manual controls to get it down. that forces open an elevator door. you have to do a lot of damage often and they will grab the people and try to pull them out to make sure that the power is off. you don't want the power to come back on so it's complicated and it's not easy. the buildings are easy to get the elevator so the floors and get the people out and you shut the elevator power down. you don't want anybody using it so the more sophisticated the building and the hotels are more sophisticated. once you get the elevators down they will tell the people not to use them anymore. they don't want people going up to the 20th floor if that's where the room is because they don't want to have another problem. leland: as you point out each one of those rescues takes five or 10 highly trained fdny firefighters and an entire crew that have to make their way in up to wherever the elevators

stuck, pulled people out of continues across the city. mr. commissioner we appreciate you being with us and we will check back with you throughout the night in and as you pointed out the bad news perhaps his 10:00 a little past 10:00 eastern and we have now had reports that there are 61,000 customers up from 44,000 customers that were out of power. that is not moving in the correct direction something you talked a lot about sir. we appreciate you being with us and your service during some of new york's hardest times. thank you, sir. >> thank you. leland: with that we bring in an aquarium and who's out on the street as well. initially we thought this had stopped at 42nd street in madison square garden and other places had power. we understand you caught up with people in madison square garden and that's not necessarily the case as the blackout seems a

grown a little bit. >> absolutely and i'm going to go ahead and bring them in. this is new information for us. hey guys how are you doing? >> we are okay. >> you were at msg watching jennifer lopez and what happened? >> she just finished a set. they started dancing or maybe two minutes and the lights went out. >> what time was this? >> maybe 9:40, 9:45. it was only 30 minutes into the show. >> were you thinking oh my gosh this is part of the show because it is you're going the show you guys are from the bronx and there have been some power outages. what's going through you might? >> i thought it was part of the show because they kept dancing. they didn't stop. that was kind of weird that they just kind of stopped. >> she came out and she would speak to the that we couldn't hear her because they lost audio

they told us they needed to evacuate the building. >> what was the mood of everybody as they were scrambling to get out? >> everyone is confused. they wanted for the safety of everyone to exit. >> was there anyone acting in a panic? it didn't feel like a stampede or anything. was quite orderly? >> i was like okay i guess we are leaving now. and all the ushers and employees at msg helped get everyone out safely. >> and 420 the numbers are going in the wrong direction we just heard from our last guest. my own personal experience allele and i'm traveling work from australia so i'm staying in a hotel here in midtown and the lights of course went off. the elevators went down and there's another emergency alarm in the el-sadat and someone came on the intercom and said this is your emergency operation supervisor and we are alerting

everyone not to use the elevators at this time. 10 minutes later they must have cut the generator. i'm i am 20 floors up thinking how am i going to get into work trampling down 20 flights of stores to make it in to see you guys. 10 minutes later they get on and say we can use the elevators again. i get down and start walking through for midtown. leland: anna roe quick i just need to stop you to tell you what we are seeing on the screen. these are aerials coming in from our affiliates who have the helicopters above midtown manhattan and you can just see a couple of lights for dozens of blocks in midtown as they look come it's hard to tell but that line you see of white lights on the right-hand side of your screen appears to be the west side highway and that's about all you can make out here as we look across new york city. real quickly for folks who aren't from here as they watch

are the people from madison square garden -- the bronx is a long way away. how are they planning on getting home? we are talking about a couple of miles outside of midtown, outside of midtown we are told by some of our other reporters. so dark people are walking along the streets and can only use the lights on their phone. >> are very fortunate that have the smartphone have the smart ones at that flashlight them? how are you ladies planning to get home? are you hosting its? >> i don't know. we are going to walk up and he is the car so hopefully we will drive back to the bronx. that's about a mile, right? that's not too bad. you guys look like you are in shape. leland: noticed out here they

don't feel like they are in dire straits at the moment. that of course could change once the sun comes up and they get super hot in new york on a july day. it's not a nice environment to be in if you don't have air-conditioning but everybody here seems like -- >> it's new york city, you know? >> would the saved all the tourists because it's not local locals who live in this area. the tourist are in the hotels and all of that better dealing with this what would you say to them? >> you are in a blackout. leland: anna kooiman at on the street. we are glad you made it out of your hotel. right now people are using the # lack out on twitter per the last time there was a blackout was 2003 or so the big northeast blackout but this is today the 42nd anniversary of the blackout of 1977 and it affects

a much larger part of new york city. there wasn't twitter back then were the #and in much the same way people were forced to walk out. there were elevator rescues and subways were stopped. a little bit closer to the heart of midtown is -- standing out looking up sixth avenue as we bring jackie and vince into a bin in the same spot for three and half hours now since this has gone on how has the mood changed and are people beginning to say we are heading home or are they having problems getting home? take us through that progression in this art. >> you know it's not noontime. it's not hot out right now. the novelty hasn't worn off yet. people are marveling that the marquees are black and the radio city music hall is dark

trade-off of folks who would ordinarily be inside watching shows and in the shows in some cases the moved out to the street in the case of waitress the broadway show and carnegie hall concerts moved out into the street when this has gone on in the first place. i think there was a bit more confusion in the beginning as you had mandatory evacuations coming over the intercom and people being told to go outside and get off of high floors and being alerted about the power outage and told to get to a place where they wouldn't be stuck. i think people were more confused then. restaurants telling folks hey the kitchen is down and we can't close your tab. you have to go somewhere else and there's a little bit of confusion but we live in an age where we know what's happening. we have our phones and we can find out this was related to a fire. we have heard from the mayor that there is no foul play here.

leland: one second jackie. these are aerials and to give you an idea where jackie was looking at her picture earlier as this camera pans around you see on the left-hand side of your screen it's pitch black and those are the areas over on ninth and tenth avenue west side highway that are residential that don't have emergency generators where it's pitch black for blocks. that means people are trying to drive, people are trying to walk home and people are trying to get out of their sweltering apartments. this is becoming more and more shall we say involves involve situation. con-edison the power company here is saying powers being restored on manhattan's web sight in most customers will be restored at midnight. that echoes that the governor of new york governor cuomo says. he says there has been no reported injuries and expects the power to be back on at

midnight although this is a little bit conflicting because initial reports of this power outage had 44,000 cup winners -- customers without power. that is not people come that its customers so it could be one theater with thousands of people watching a broadway play or at jacqui pointed out one restaurant where they evacuated everyone from the j-lo concert. start there at the station etc. and then we went to 61,000 customers without power. con-edison former fire department of new york fdny commissioner said he really did not like hearing that news that this number was going up but it is not cascading across other parts of new york city. jacqui i'm interested in hearing from you. have you tracked down anyone not necessarily at tourist in

perhaps people who are trying to figure out how to get home since there is no subway service? so many of these streets are shut down. >> as you know it's difficult to find a person in midtown manhattan that is not a tourist but as far as the subway service goes it's not completely shut down. the image you are seeing on your screen there speaks to that. there is limited service on the subway. you have the one, two and the three lines running locally and five subway lines were shut down and trains were passing substations that had no service because of the power outage there. we also know remarkably the long island railroad which is right out of penn station, they are running close to on schedule. that is positive to and there is traffic that is allowed to move. you have nypd directing folks by hand because all the streetlights are shut down so things are moving. it's not like we are stranded in

the difference between this partial blackout them what happened 40 plus years ago is we know what this is. there isn't looting and rioting happening. we know there is no bigger threat and people are just kind of waiting for things to come back on line and sharing stories of where they were when the lights went out. leland: as we look down sixth avenue is one of the areas they shut down to move fdny crews up and down midtown manhattan. bryan llenas i'm hearing your voice that sounds like were low on batteries from your phone which is understandable my friend. tell us where you are and what's going on and how you made your way out of madison square garden when we last checked with you. reporter: hey leland i just wanted to -- leland: we have your life

picture. you're her 31st birthday turned into a workday for you. >> vape put up the marquee a few hours ago saying j-lo sold out and now it's black. people are just really upset not knowing what to do right now. this concert they had spent hundreds of dollars on was canceled 20 minutes in. you can see the interesting thing about this while you see some of the lights in the lobby that are on inside the stadium it was dark and if you look at the marquee it is dark but if you look across the street the lights are on. this is the intersection of 33rd and seventh right outside of f station so the lights are still on their but unfortunately the lights at the msg are often that's why people evacuated.

leland: for folks not from new york it's easy for us who spend a lot of time in the east coast to get to the nitty-gritty of this. penn station is underneath of madison square garden and we understand the trains they are running on time. have you been able to talk to anybody who was on the train coming or going and is that how they are getting people out? it. >> well you know what you make a great point. i'm going to walk over to where penn station is. people are cursing. it's saturday night in new york. here's penn station. do you still have my signal here quite. leland: we do brian. >> this is the main stairway to penn station. the lights are out and i'm walking down right now. again the lights on the streets were on.

somebody just dropped something. sorry, okay. we go down here it's a similar situation to what was on-site at the arena. the floodlights are on right now i call them floodlights but the backup lights and now it is light appear. can you still see the picture leila it? leland: we can and i've got to tell you it's a little eerie underground to see that. >> it is, it is. obviously a saturday night. leland: you aren't the only person walking down there. we have folks walking around and it looks like they are trying to make their train. >> if you look over here some of these tracks from the transit they are closed and if you keep walking, i will find out. it looks like the häagen-dazs is closed and people are walking. did you guys just get off the

train? and though? leland: brian weir losing your signal. we will try to find a little bit more power. >> go ahead leland, i'm coming back. you see my signal? leland: we don't right now. we want to take an aerial shot of new york city. bryan llenas is down at madison square garden with folks coming on there getting onto trains are getting off. this is a helicopter shot of what is almost entirely black midtown manhattan and you can see them trying to open the iris on the camera to get a better picture. you have a couple of buildings on the west side that power. times square has power and their buildings that have emergency power but so many of the neighborhoods here, we are talking about hells kitchen and the upper west side at lincoln center. these residential areas from

seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth avenue the west side of the highway from 42nd street up to about 60 the street or 70th street are pitch black. con-ed saying this is because of the manhole fire. at least that's how it started which then went into a transformer that blew and put much of manhattan into darkness. the lower right-hand corner of your screen you can see the new york emergency management command center being moved in. we are expecting a news conference from them. that was supposed to happen 45 minutes ago. we have not heard anything. mayor de blasio says he is on his way back to new york. if we look at sixth avenue heading uptown toward central park, it is void of any traffic. the new york police have shut it down to provide a thoroughfare for firetrucks and other first responders to move up and down the city.

we are told that rescue crews from the bronx from brooklyn and queens have been moved in to this area for elevator rescues and to pull people out of stock so boys although there is good news on that. we are told everybody is out of the subway but the new york fire department still responding to all of those reports of people stuck in elevators in the biggest buildings, the skyscrapers in new york have lights on. where there are no flights are in some of these residential areas. todd starnes of fox nation has been walking around and i don't know todd is still with us or available by phone but he has been talking about people walking around on pitch black streets no street lights, no stoplights and cars trying to move through, firetrucks and convoy emergency vehicles moving through and the only way people can see anything or get around are the flashlights on their

cell phones so todd we hope you of stop moving so you can use your phone to talk to us. have you been able to move in the past 45 minutes? >> right now i'm on 42nd street near the uss intrepid for those of the viewers and may not be familiar with new york city and where we are. some buildings have power and some of the high-rises do not especially the ones at the lower end of 42nd street. leland: todd we will have to cut you off to go to bed news conference by the commission are talking about the party to new york city. >> assembly member linda rosenthal. a quick up day. at 6:47 p.m. there was an electrical disturbance in the system affecting approximately 62,000 customers in the manhattan area. this was caused by a power outage on the west side of

manhattan. the fire department police department and emergency management responded quickly to the scene and we are working closely with con-ed to restore power as quickly as possible. we have no reports of injuries or fatalities at this time. we also have a list of those individuals that are in lifesaving equipment at work with them to make sure they have what they need. we have put together a joint task force with the pd and the fire department to make sure that nobody is stuck in a net elevator still appeared right now but to turn it over to the ceo of con-ed john mcavoy to give us an update from con-ed. >> good evening. thanks very much for my name is john mcavoy and i represent con-edison. we have experienced a significant disturbance on the west side of manhattan at one of our electric transmission statements at roughly 6:47 p.m..

eventually it disrupted power to approximately 73,000 customers. we divide the electric system and what we call networks and neighborhoods. it is distracting power in six networks. we have expedited the recovery performed an initial assessment of all was the most likely cause , isolated that equipment inspected the other equipment to identify any obvious abnormalities and now we have started the restoration process. of the six networks we lost we have restored two of those networks starting before 10:00 p.m. and we are working to restore the remaining four networks by midnight tonight. there are some unknowns in this. as we restore equipment we may find things that we are not currently aware of but we are proceeding. we will then look at the

abandoned restore the system to a fully normal condition once we understand exactly what occurred and the outages we are all experiencing. >> you note that the way this happened next is not an especially hot day and thankfully this saturday and which businesses and people are not in their offices. >> it does not appear related an excessive load that sometimes has occurred in the past. when we have an incident like this we focus first on isolation of the equipment are the most likely failed equipment and then restoration of customers. when customers are restored and we do the full investigation to identify that will follow later today and tomorrow. leland: the lights just went on idea. how do you feel about that? >> ifill just as well as everybody in the crowd behind me, believe me.

i can't speak to the explosion that they may have heard. when you have things like this large circuit breakers which are the high-voltage equipment and the breakers in the panels are very loud when they operate. that could have been what they heard but i'd can't know for sure because there were restoration attempts made. i did hear a report of a fire in a manhole. we will investigate. it's very unlike the that fire in a manhole was the cause of an incident like this. see this as a happen occasionally in our city. sometimes in the winter size's eyes and other times overloading. what could be the cause of two incidences at the same time? >> i'm really not able to estimate what if -- what could have caused this. we have to go through the engineering analysis to identify the causes.

>> the networks are back on. >> we have to out of sixpack and a third out of six. i'm looking to see if anyone had asked any updates. we have five of the six networks restored. one network remains to be restored. if the pennsylvania network which is roughly 42nd at 32nd street to roughly broadway and seventh avenue. we do not expect any additional outages this evening. >> a lot of people saw regular workers jumping into traffic. can you explain what the protocol is when dealing with an emergency? >> good evening. i'm the commanding officer of

manhattan. we brought units from around the city or the affected area was for two, 72 from fifth avenue to the west side. we were leading city buses that up without point stopping civilian traffic from going there. we are in the process of bringing all units in. there is a significant uniform presence out there right now. >> we appreciate their assistance. i heard reports that gentleman with a cane assisting traffic. we were stopping traffic from coming into the area and that's what we are focusing on. >> people jumped into the intersections to help out back then. would he say about new yorkers? >> i was 42 years ago tonight that we have the blackout. it's a totally different situation tonight. people came together and we

handled it pretty well. >> where is bill de blasio her ex. >> bill de blasio the mayor of new york is running for president he's in iowa tonight. he is involved in communications with top officials here. >> we are going to continue to work closely with pd fire and con-edison. we will get that up as it is possible. the cooperation has been excellent and that's why we have been able to get it restored as quickly as we have and thank you again for coming out tonight. [inaudible] again we have a task force that's been going to all of the affected buildings to make sure no one was in the elevators. i have not gotten any reports at this moment that we have a task force going building to building >> are there reports of injuries in this sort of thing? reports of injuries? >> no reports of injuries or fatalities and i've been personally in touch with the

mayor to give them an update on the situation. thank you very much. >> we we are live on "fox news" channel right now. leland: we are going to get out of this press conference for a second eric shawn standing by you can see trying to work and get some interviews as we continue to cover the blackout of 2019 in new york city. we are now learning this thousands of people have their power back on. you heard a cheer go up when the lights came back on outside of the con-edison. that is the power companies press conference. 6:47 p.m. so roughly four hours ago they said six of their networks went down. they don't know why are there have been reports of manhole fires. there have been reports of a transformer fire. they don't know officially why but 62,000 customers which

equates to hundreds of thousands if not millions of new yorkers left in the dark. the new york police department said they issued a level 3 callout and/or bringing and police officers from around new york city from 72nd street to 42nd street, shutting down all civilian traffic in trying to push cars out so they could get extra emergency crews in. convoys of firetrucks coming and for elevator rescues, convoys of police cars coming in for traffic control to try to provide a presence on the pitch black streets of new york city and convoys of city buses to move people out of this affected area. eric shawn was at this press conference. we understand we have him now standing by live. eric give us a sense of what happened when we heard that a cheer go up.

there were more like they came back on? >> leland let me show you a group of new yorkers standing here while the officials were having a press conference on the other side and if scott could pin up to show you the building look what you have on top of the building. yet the lights on so right in the middle of the news conference there was a sudden cheer which is why asked the commissioner about his feelings. with me is manhattan burro president. you must be feeling pretty good that almost everything is back on. >> ifill great because i was here earlier. i heard about the senior who lived on the 35th floor. they had come down and how are they going to get back up and i'm concerned about people who have life support of any kind in their apartment. understand the office of emergency management didn't know everyone who had life support but i worry. that was my main concern. during that time period we worry about people who need life

support systems. reporter: there's a list of people on life support who need this for this type of emergency? >> in most cases there was no list so we learned the hard way. >> it's a legacy of manhattan of what we lived through. those lessons have been learned by emergency management. >> having been here for 9/11 and superstorm sandy as long as nobody was hurt and everybody survived and the lights came on. we were sitting here. >> the officials say the lights should be on completely by the mid-night an hour and a half from now. would what do you say to visitors in times square? it broadway shows had to stop in and some poured out onto the streets and they continued to give confidence and comfort to visitors to the city that the city can act fast and accomplish

things on these emergencies happen. >> you didn't act fast in carnegie hall that brought the entire chorus and the symphony orchestra into the streets. i know they did that on broadway. thank god it was a saturday as you suggested earlier not a weekday. this was a learning experience that i hope doesn't happen again however. eric: gail brewer thank you. let's come over here and we have some new yorkers. excuse me, sir let me stop you for a second. how are you? >> new york is that small-town buddhism mike schreibman who's been an old friend. i didn't know you lived here. >> i live a few blocks away but it was dark in the apartment so i came out here. >> you were in the apartment. >> all the lights when out and i have a ups battery that was

beeping and went to the basement of building and that's where we are like the whole building was out. the whole neighborhood was out. it was mayhem. the traffic lights were out and the traffic was bad. eric: new york has come together and obviously back that it's on. >> i could go home right now but there's a bar that we were all sitting at in the blackout and was a great time. we had a lot of people from their and i'm going to go back at and hang out with them. >> have a great time. >> it's good to see you again. >> only eric would you run into one of your good friends on the street in new york city headed back to blackout party. we are going to check back in one minute. want to bring in bernard harris of former nypd police commissioner. we have heard for the first time officially from the nypd commissioner and they call that a level 3 callout bringing officers and from not only

manhattan but all of new york. tell us what that means and what it meant to you as you listen to the press conference. >> a level 3 mobilization designates how many cops from each precinct and from each firehouse. it comes from all over the city but you have to look at new york city. i was listening ms. brewer's comments. nobody has the resources. no other city in the country and when something like this happens we react and we respond and we get the job done. and we will learn just like we did at 9/11 and from sandy. there will be things they learned tonight that they can use in the future for the people of new york city and the city. leland: in terms of how we have seen things happening talk about pushing out all of the civilian

traffic to allow so the police department to move in and buses can move in. there was the j-lo concert. tens of thousands of people there she put up under instagram devastated and heartbroken that i can't perform for you all tonight. we will make this up to you i promise, i love you. video inside of madison square garden. how is that decision made and how does the police response come back and to keep tens of thousands of people are flooding onto the streets save? >> that has a lot to do with the mobilization depending on where the cops are going to go and what their designation points are in what with a response points are in the decision that is made who called the shots is

going to be a combination of the rescue management people the nypd the fire department and the business development people in the area. they make a decision on what's going to be shut down and with the moving points going to be and things like that. these plants are constantly being updated all over the city and especially midtown where you have masses and masses of tens of thousands of people. leland: i think it was eisenhower this is something along the lines that plans are useless and indispensable. as we think about this we look up fifth avenue in its shut down but there are lights on with emergency generators and so on. they shut down to move the firetrucks and convoys in and out but we have heard on the eighth, ninth and tenth avenue on the west side west side highway so many of these residential areas are pitch black. there are no lights on the

streets and there are no police officers because they up and moved into the higher density higher population areas. how long will it take before they will be able to get police officers we officially heard talking we want to have a cop on every corner. how long does that take you think? >> well it depends on where they are coming from. they will get into position almost immediately. they have got to focus on the masses first and get to those outlying areas. keep in mind we have tens of thousands of people in midtown starting to move. imagine times square on new year's eve. that's our biggest event of the year where you have 7000 cops to deal with those people.

this is the same sort of thing. you mean -- you need as many cops in the same very wary of tens tens of thousands of people moving at one time. leland: commissioner we appreciate your time. standby stand by for the next hour or so and they will come back for your expertise. according to con-ed they say they want the lights on in all of manhattan in the next hour and 15 minutes. they have begun to turn on more and more. we went from 62,000 now down to 49,000 customers. that's hundreds of thousands of individual apartments be at condos etc. so millions of people still affected. commissioner we appreciate it. one place where the lights are going to continue to go out over the next couple of days is down in louisiana. that is where the hurricane has come ashore and is now making its way and dumping them into

the mouths of rain, inches of rainfall not only in new orleans but baton rouge, louisiana and across an already flooded mississippi. rick leventhal is live in the storm zone as the storm has come ashore and they are now beginning to figure out exactly how bad it is. hi rich. >> leila and i can tell you there are a lot of people in the dark across the state of louisiana but not the folks in new orleans. the weather has been surprisingly good, much better than forecast but we keep hearing warnings from authorities that things could take a dramatic turn for the worse overnight into tomorrow with more warnings of heavy thunderstorms are possible flash flooding and for that reason and the mayor of new orleans is encouraging people to stay off the streets. >> we are not out of the conditions that will cause heavy rainfall for the city of new orleans. although berry has slowed its

also intensified pushing the timing of the expected impact further into today, tonight and sunday. while the storm surge risk on her mississippi river has passed the primary risk continues to remain heavy rain for the city of new orleans. >> buried lay -- made landfall near marsh island as a weak category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 75 miles an hour and gusts of 95 miles an hour carrying heavy rain bands in the storm surge to the louisiana gulf coast. the weather service predicts the storm could dump another 10 to 20 inches of rain of crossed parts of louisiana as the storm makes its way north and there have been several reports of this surge overlapping levees and a number of parishes including plaquemines parish and

authorities have staged equipment to deal with those issues. they were not reach his over washes and residents were encouraged to evacuate to the lowland areas in the evidently many did not get out. rescuers have rescued a dozen so far. they are told not to get out and survey the aftermath or the storm. so i do not attempt to go sightseeing. that is very dangerous for you but the real problem with that is you make it much more like he if you venture out too soon and when it's not necessary for you to do so hour emergency response people will have to be trying to rescue those sightseers. >> all of the major levees along the mississippi river protecting the city of new orleans and the surrounding neighborhoods are all standing firm. the river crested at 17 feet not the 20 that some people were concerned about it earlier in the week they there are 120,000

customers without power tonight through the airport was closed today but they are hoping it will reopen tomorrow and things will slowly get back to normal we live in. leland: or halves normal in new orleans but as you pointed out inland in louisiana 20 inches of rain possible in some of these communities and flooding continuing throughout the next couple of days. rick leventhal and his team in new orleans moving as events warrant forward. we have a team scattered all throughout the gulf coast area and also in lynn that routers etc. to watch for flooding. as the sun comes up back here in new york city as you look a hime it doesn't look like the normal shot of sixth avenue because a major power outage a blackout that affected 62,000 customers. it is empty because the new york police department showed it in a number of other avenues down to try and move massive amounts of first responders.

convoys of firetrucks and police officers into the area from 72nd at 70 1st down to 42nd street, fifth avenue to the west side. in some areas the powers just starting to go on but in parts of manhattan it's totally dark in some of the residential areas we are told the new york fire department was making a number of emergency rescues out of elevators and their people stuck in subways for at least an hour. when this happened it was about 6:45. the broadway shows went dark or the j-lo concert in madison square garden was evacuated. restaurants were evacuated as well. jackson heinrich on sixth avenue where it's still very high. there are tens of thousands of tourists who have been pushed out of their hotels and onto the street. she is with some of them who are shockingly perhaps not

surprisingly still in a good mood and taking it in stride. reporter: everyone is taking it in stride. you don't have a choice but to roll with it when this happens. we are in one of the six areas the lost power. there were six networks that lost power today, five of them the power company says are back on line but this one still is not in this is where we have a whole bunch of folks visiting from out of town. i'm here with the family from north carolina. you guys came here all the way to near to the to see a broadway show. what happened? he got in line to go and what did they say view? >> we were in line to see the show and we couldn't figure out why we were having to wait in line so long. eventually they said it was going to be canceled. we think we will get refunds on their tickets and it'll give us an excuse to come back and visit the city again. >> were you guys excited about this? i can imagine being your agent might be a little upsetting but

it might be interesting for you to witness. what were you thinking about? >> kind of nerve-racking. >> i don't know. yeah. >> do you think you'll come back again and? >> yeah. >> it's funny because a lot of folks were told the hotel they were staying in the powers out and you might want to go to an area outside a restaurant in telling people to go outdoors. they wouldn't be old to serve them because they wouldn't be up the clothes their bill. it was a little bit nerve-racking for people before with no this is related to a transformer issue and was not related to a larger threat that once people got the idea that they weren't in a kind of danger the novelty of it stopped and we saw people congregating at the plaza behind me. folks are just looking up at the marquees in the buildings that are dark. we have the radio city music hall and the businesses behind

them are still dark. this is a site that you don't ever see in your city. not to diminish the suffering of folks who are stuck in elevators and more of the residential areas. in this part of midtown manhattan there are a lot of hotels and a lot of the things that have stairwells and announcements for folks to evacuated they got people out into a safe place. a lot of places have generators. in the neighborhood residential areas that's where you are having to call for the fire department to go up and check on folks who might be in an area that they can't get out of and also check on people who need to use lifesaving equipment at this time. the last update we got from the press conference was that there were no related injuries, no deaths and right behind me its it's back on. the radio city music hall lit up

once again a welcoming sight. people are so excited to see this. a lot of excitement. storefronts are lit up again and people are ready to go back into the restaurant to get their drinks in the dinner that they never had. they were waiting all night for it. what do you think about all this? have you been waiting for a long time out here quite. >> we went 23 flights of stairs at the hilton. >> it's so great, it's awesome. >> it's a happy scene after a lot of waiting around so glad you ended on a good note. lee led back to you. leland: they will have a story to tell whenever one asks in school what did you do last summer? it will be a little bit different than anyone else. jacqui heinrich on the street and she has been for the past four hours. todd in new york city and their folks without air-conditioning.

the lights back on sixth avenue but still so much of this city in the dark. we will be back with win con-ed says the lights will be back on. r $379 a month, for 36 months, and we'll make your first month's payment. experience amazing. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, hmm. exactly. so you only pay for what you need. nice. but, uh... what's up with your... partner? not again. limu that's your reflection. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪

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. >> and fox news alert 11:00 on saturday night, in the summer in new york city, and for much of this city, it is still dark. that means no air-conditioning, that means no elevators, that means people having to walk miles to get home because the subways are shut down. 6th avenue shut down as police try to evacuate everybody from an area of 30 or 40 square blocks in manhattan from 72nd street to 42nd street because of a massive power outage at its peak effectuated 62000 customers translates to millions of people. the new york policrt