DEP organizational chart for 9/11 emergency response, Sept 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

THE WORKERS

Con Edison Crews Improvise as They Rewire a Truncated System tion; if Albany Street did not work, together at a stem that runs back to he would m^e sure some other Brooklyn under the East River. By NEELA BANERJEE At the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge As he and his men began the com­ route did. The Wall Street businesses just up the street from a silent Ful­ plicated task of restoring power to a ton Fish Market, Mr. Bauer knelt wounded financial district, Steve over an open manhole to see how Cilffi of Consolidated Edison seemed to be running into as many barriers Routine electrical work was progressing. The Y below as a mouse in a maze. Two Con Ed substations that re­ work, but on an him bad to be sliced open for workers to seal the cables leading to the de­ layed electricity to much of Lower Manhattan were destroyed Tuesday unimaginable funct substations. The difficulty was that the cables were insulated within when 7 World Trade Center col­ lapsed on them. Mr. Cilffi and the 32 scale. the Y-joints in an oily liquid called dialectric fluid. two-member crews he directs were Con Ed workers have to drain off among the workers trying /to fix the fluid to get to the cables. To do ; damage from the attack, which left and residents who will slowly filter that, they have dug down to the pipes deep wounds in the infrastructure of back over the coming weeks will about 30 feet away at both ends of the the city, from transit to communica­ need the power. And perhaps more, Y-joint, and encased the pipes in tions to electrical power. the city needs to know it can rebuild. “jackets” into which liquid nitrogen Thousands of customers in Lower Con Ed employees like Mr. Cilffi is pumped to freeze the fluid. Manhattan have no electricity. Con focus on their work and try not to That frozen fluid creates a plug at Ed declines to estimate when power think about what surrounds them, each end of the pipe that allows only will be fully restored, but it has de­ Mr. Cilffi said. And they point out the fluid around the Y-joint-to be voted 850 workers to the area, many collected. There are five such joints ofwhom will be laying down about 20 that much of what they are doing — miles of cable as part of the tempo­ running shunts and splicing cable, near the East River, and it takes rary system. Some big customers, digging trenches and laying heavy almost a day for the liquid nitrogen like the New York Stock Exchange, metal plates on them — they do to take effect. have their own temporary power. routinely. Then a cutting team will come in, Mr. Cilffi was trying to rig a tem­ “The magnitude of this is so huge, followed by others who run a current porary circuit of electrical cables to all the work that has to be done at through the cables to determine draw power from other substations one time,’’ said Mark Bauer, a Con which ones go to which substations. nearby that would run mostly above Ed engineer involved in the rebuild­ Once that is determined, the cables ground, skirting the edges of the ing. “The manpower, the tooling, the running to the void of the World coordination is so tremendous.’’ Trade Center will be sealed, and the Mr. Bauer was supervising work power from Brooklyn will be smoldering trade center site. But as switched back on. he tried to extend bis cables down to the east of Mr. Cilffi, to revive As the work continues, supervisors Murray Street, two blocks north of substations there that will power like Mr. Cilffi find their way home by the World Trade Center Plaza, he aboveground circuits like those Mr. 2 in the morning, only to return to realized that 'aboveground cables Cilffi is setting up. Lower Manhattan a few hours later. would be impractical, and that in­ The substations at the World stead he would have to dig a shallow Trade Center got their power from trench for them the length of "the Brooklyn, as does a substation at the street because so much heavy earth­ South Street Seaport. When power is moving equipment was passing transmitted from plants, it passes through. The excavation contractor, through substations that lower the though, was about 18 hours late. voltage. That is part of an extended Along the marina behind the World process that makes electricity sale Financial Center, Mr. Cilffi had to be to enter buildings. careful to avoid the hoses that fire­ Mr. Bauer was trying to seal off fighters were running from the Hud­ the cables that took power to the son River to West Street. And at destroyed substations so that Con Ed Albany Street in Battery Park City, could resume sending electricity to where Mr. Cilffi wanted to jog his the seaport substation. The power in makeshift system east, an enormous those cables has been turned off, and red crane blocked the way. cannot be turned on again until the “They’re worried, too, that that old cables to the World Trade Center are building on the comer might col­ sealed. Otherwise, turning on the lapse,’’ Mr. Cilffi said, citing warn­ power would create a giant short ings he had received about a graceful circuit. But the cables were encased old gabled building at West and Alba­ underground in so-called Y-joints, ny, gutted by days of fire. “Lodes like enormous metal pipes that are we’ll never get through here.’’ shaped like a slingshot and that join A 28-year veteran of Con Ed, Mr. Cilffi shook off the stab of frustra-

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