By Rich Heidorn Jr.

Temperatures finally receded Monday after a three-day heat wave that broiled cities from Oklahoma City to Boston. But Consolidated Edison remained on the hot seat after power outages hit 50,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County on Sunday night.

That included 30,000 customers in Brooklyn whose service was cut Sunday to prevent equipment damage. As of 3 p.m. Monday, the company was reporting almost 12,000 customers still without service.

The outage came just a week after a blackout attributed to failed relay systems that darkened part of Manhattan. (See Con Ed: Failed Relay Protections Caused NYC Blackout.)

An angry New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday he had lost faith in the utility, echoing Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s suggestion after the July 13 outages that it could be replaced.

“I spoke to Con Ed’s president last night. I spoke to him this morning,” de Blasio told reporters Monday. “No answers whatsoever as to why this happened and what is being done to ensure it will not happen again. This was obviously a predicable situation and therefore preventable.

“It’s very clear we have to question whether Con Ed as it’s structured now can do the job going forward or whether we need to go to an entirely different approach. So, I’m calling for a full investigation and [an inquiry into] whether we need a new entity to handle this situation going forward, because at this point, I do not have faith in Con Edison.”

Cuomo repeated his criticism in a tweet in which he announced he had deployed 200 State Police officers, 100 generators and 50 light towers to Brooklyn. “We’ve been through this situation with Con Ed time and again, and they should have been better prepared — period,” he said.

Con Ed’s stock closed Monday at $86.82/share, down more than $2 (2.4%) from its close before the two blackouts on July 12.

The company said Monday its actions were needed to prevent more severe outages.

“We are completely focused on getting customers back in service, and we regret the distress they are under,” it said in a statement. “The actions we took were necessary to prevent longer outages to the impacted customers that would have occurred as a result of additional equipment damage. Customer service representatives are in southeast Brooklyn providing assistance as crews work to restore the remaining customers in that area, as well as other parts of our service area.”

Con Ed earlier reduced voltage by 8% in some areas to maintain service. The company distributed dry ice to residents during the outage.

Company spokesmen told The New York Times that the outages were ordered to prevent damage to overhead lines at risk of overloading due to the heat. “It is the third day of the heat wave, so the system is really baking at this point,” one representative said.

Con Ed wasn’t the only utility that faced challenges in the heat. PSEG Long Island had about 6,000 customers without power Sunday evening, Newsday reported.

Other utilities scrambled to restore power after strong thunderstorms brought down lines. DTE Energy reported that 600,000 customers in southeast Michigan suffered outages as a result of the region’s largest storm in years. Consumers Energy said about 220,000 customers lost service as storms downed more than 2,600 wires.

Weather-related outages also were reported in New Jersey and Wisconsin.