Blue Light in Gotham City

New York Today
N.Y. Today: What We Know About the Explosion and the Blue Light

By Azi Paybarah

Dec. 28, 2018


It’s Friday.

Weather: Something for everyone: buckets of warmish rain today with a high of 57, sunny on Saturday, cold on Sunday, raw and rainy New Year’s Eve.

Alternate-side parking: in effect till New Year’s Day.
Image
The Queens explosion as seen from a Brooklyn rooftop about 10 miles away.CreditIlana Storace

For a few minutes last night, it seemed as if the world was ending.

Around 9:12 p.m., the sky over New York City turned several shades of bright fluorescent blue. There was smoke and a loud hum. People freaked out on social media, wondering if aliens had invaded. La Guardia Airport went dark.

The culprit turned out to be an explosion at a Con Edison plant in Queens. Miraculously, there were no injuries, except perhaps to the feelings of those who truly wanted to meet some aliens.

[Read the full story on the explosion.]

Times reporters will be following the story all day, so check back for updates.

For now, here’s what we know:

• The cause: Mayor Bill de Blasio said the light was caused by an “electrical surge” at a Con Ed substation in Astoria, at the northern tip of Queens.

A Con Edison spokesman, Bob McGee, said early this morning: “What people were seeing was an electric arc flash. The electrical arc of that magnitude is similar to a thunder and lightning event.” The sound people heard was “the arc striking the ground.”

The Police Department described it, bluntly, as a “transformer explosion.” The reason for the explosion remained unclear this morning. The authorities have not mentioned any possible contamination from the blast.

• The impact: Power was shut down at La Guardia Airport, near the plant, for about 45 minutes and flights were grounded. A few dozen homes briefly lost power.

The No. 7 subway line was partly, and briefly, shut down.

• How the city responded: With confusion, fear and lots of humor on social media.

Besides those inevitable jokes about an alien invasion, there were also comparisons to the movie “Ghostbusters,” and someone guessed this was part of the third season of “Stranger Things.”

One reporter raised the possibility of it being linked to President Trump, tweeting, “Space Force!”

One person called this whole strange episode the Astoria Borealis.

Even the police got caught up in the night’s strange mood: “No injuries, no fire, no evidence of extraterrestrial activity.”