Residents frustrated over weekslong power outage at Bed-Stuy apartment building

Residents say they are still left in the dark three weeks after an electrical fire broke out in a Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment building.

News 12 Staff

Jan 11, 2022, 3:33 AM

Updated 1,064 days ago

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Residents say they are still left in the dark three weeks after an electrical fire broke out in a Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment building.
Resident Malcom Owens says this is the worst outage the building at 400 Herkimer St. has seen in decades.
“I feel my neighbor's frustration and concerns. Women and children can't go to school the way they are supposed to or move around the house the way they are supposed to,” he says.
Owens also relies on a defibrillator to keep him alive and says he's had to go to extreme measures for his health.
“I went and picked up a generator, just in case it went out again,” he says.
Gertrude Edwards, who has been a resident of the building for 10 years, has a 6-year-old child to take care of. She says the amount of food that’s been spoiled in the outage has her cost hundreds of dollars.
Residents say they filed more than 300 complaints with Housing Preservation and Development. While construction does appear to be ongoing in the building, residents say the problem is the work is not getting done fast enough and they are the ones suffering.
“We could use the extra help or to get another crew out here to get this problem settled faster,” Owens says.