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Update 6:05 p.m.: And here it is, the confirmation from Con Ed. Chelsea, say hello to your power.
#ConEdison just restored power to 25,000 customers in the #Chelsea network
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) November 2, 2012
Update 5:49 p.m.: Twitter says that Chelsea now has power back, too. No confirmation from Con Ed, though.
RT @priscabae: Power back in Chelsea! Think I just heard cheering outside. #Sandy
— Brian Ries Verified! (@moneyries) November 2, 2012
Update 5:15 p.m.: And now Con Ed has confirmed it on their Twitter. Welcome back to the wonderful world of power, Lower East Side and East Village.
#ConEdison restores over 65,000 customers on the Lower East Side and East Village areas of #Manhattan #Sandy
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) November 2, 2012
Here's the exact location, for those living on the boarders of those areas.
Area restored begins at Canal St,stretches as far north as 14/15th and reaches west to Broadway and east to the East River #ConEdison #Sandy
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) November 2, 2012
Update 4:57 p.m.: No word from Con Ed yet, but people all over Lower Manhattan are tweeting about the lights being back on.
Power just came back in the East village. Honking and cheering. People are going bonkers.
— caitlin thompson (@caitlin_thomps) November 2, 2012
The New York Times's Brian Stelter says that he has seen tweets from Lower East Side, East Village and SoHo, too
Update 3:05 p.m.: This is too cruel, ConEd has now officially taken away those robocalls it made about supposed electricity in Chelsea, pushing back the power-back-on date to tomorrow night.
Apologies to the folks receiving robocalls from #ConEdison in #Manhattan - We're still on target to have power restored by tmw night
— Con Edison (@ConEdison) November 2, 2012
Though, don't get too down, yet. That is contrary to what Teen Vogue's Julia Rubin tweeted below. She says Con Ed told her to expect power tonight. Fingers crossed, people.
Update 2:45 p.m.: ConEd isn't going to win any points with Andrew Cuomo or Chelsea residents. After robocalling Chelsea residents and getting their hopes up, apparently ConEd is now in the process of robocalling those people back up and telling them to disregard the message that their power was restored.
ConEd phone call, 2pm: We have restored power to your building. ConEd phone call, 2:31pm: Please disregard our prior phone call. </3
— Steph Wu (@stephwu) November 2, 2012
Twitter But those same people also got calls saying that the power would come back today. So all will be well ... eventually.
New call from ConEd: please disregard our previous call, but we will be restoring your service today.
— Julia Rubin (@juliarubin) November 2, 2012
Original: There are a lot of mixed messages out there about the state of electricity in Lower Manhattan, but at least some Chelsea dwellers got sweet sweet Con Ed phone calls, saying their power was back.
Just got a ConEd call saying my power has been restored - Chelsea/West Village. Does this mean street and traffic lights are also in order?
— Julia Rubin (@juliarubin) November 2, 2012
FRIEND WHO LIVES IN CHELSEA JUST GOT PHONE CALL FROM CON ED: POWER BACK IN HIS BLDG.
— jezebel dodai (@jezebeldodai) November 2, 2012
The Atlantic Wire's Alex Abad-Santos's household also got one such message. It's been a roller coaster of emotions today for downtown dwellers, since a Con Ed spokesman this morning told us all of Manhattan would get power back, and then Con Ed's twitter account took that back, followed by remarks by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg that led us to believe there would be light today. Bloomberg said that "most" of it would be back by tonight; Cuomo said power would come back to downtown tonight, with the following caveat. "That does not mean every light will work in downtown Manhattan," he said.
In Cuomo's remarks, he also kind of threatened the power companies saying, "New Yorkers should not suffer because electric utilities did not reasonably prepare for this eventuality. In the context of the ongoing emergency, such a failure constitutes a breach of the public trust." So maybe that lit a motivational fire, which brought light to Chelsea? Or maybe the Con Ed Twitter account is under-promising so we will love it the utility for over-delivering the electricity back to Lower Manhattan tonight, instead of tomorrow.
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