Stray electrical voltage was found at more than 1,100 sites in the city last year – and 72 of those street lamps, sidewalk grates and utility boxes sizzled with potentially lethal levels of errant electricity.
In its first comprehensive testing of stray voltage, Con Ed found 1,151 faulty pieces of publicly accessible equipment throughout all five boroughs.
About 92 percent of the loose juice was found in streetlights, overwhelmingly in the outer boroughs.
Queens had the worst record, with 404 volt-spewing streetlights, followed by Staten Island with 291, The Bronx with 283 and Brooklyn with 79. Manhattan had just nine energized poles.
Although the number of hazardous sites fell 20 percent from those identified a year earlier, critics said one jolt is too many. The new report points to one particular culprit – old aluminum cables inside streetlights.
Con Ed says that about half of the faulty streetlights are the responsibility of the city Department of Transportation – but that in every case of stray voltage, the utility does cut the power and make the equipment safe until repairs can be done.
When asked whether it had plans to upgrade all the streetlights whose older wiring has proven hazardous, Con Ed would not commit to anything.
“As part of our regular maintenance and upgrades, we do fix some infrastructures, but age is not the sole determining factor here,” said Michael Clendenin, a Con Ed spokesman.
Con Ed is now required to test all “publicly accessible underground and overhead distribution structures and streetlights” – which number about 730,000 – for errant electricity on an annual basis since the death of Jodie Lane in January 2004. She was electrocuted while walking her dogs in the East Village.
According to its 2005 report, Con Ed permanently repaired virtually all 1,151 hazard sites within 45 days.
Prior to Lane’s death, Con Ed did not test annually for stray voltage, did not make the results of its inspections public, and was largely self-policing on public-safety issues.
“Stray voltage can have dire consequences. The fact that it still exists at all is unacceptable,” said City Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens), who co-sponsored the reform legislation.
“The Public Service Commission is useless. They have no inspectors to certify that Con Ed is actually doing what it’s been mandated to do.”
Of all the incidents of errant electricity identified in Con Ed’s new report, 72 involved potentially deadly currents of 51 or more volts.
Separately, Con Ed told The Post there were five incidents of stray-voltage shock in the city last year, three of whom were citizens, one a Con Ed staffer and one a Keyspan staffer.
In reaction to Lane’s electrocution, Con Ed last year conducted a 24-day blitz, testing 413,000 of the city’s underground structures and light poles. That inspection turned up 1,441 hot spots.
Regardless, last October, Department of Sanitation worker Ian Gavigan was nearly electrocuted as he picked up a discarded umbrella that was touching a light pole in the East Village.
Four months after his terrifying jolt, Gavigan says, “I still have numbness in my fingers and my hand shakes” – conditions for which he has been seeing a neurologist.
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Current events
Stray-voltage incidents by borough
Queens 416
Bronx 299
Staten Island 298
Brooklyn 109
Manhattan 35
Total NYC 1,151
In streetlights: 1,066
Queens 404
Staten Island 291
Bronx 283
Brooklyn 79
Manhattan 9
Source: 2005 Con Edison report