A power outage shut down businesses, delayed trains, and plunged New York’s busy Grand Central Station station into darkness after underground water pipe burst. Lights were off and stores shut as of 9am on Monday.

Passengers were forced to walk through pitch dark corridors. Ticket machines were not operational and many travellers faced delays and. Though a fraction of the lights came on two hours later, businesses on the lower level remained closed and most lights were still off at 1pm. The outage came after a water pipe burst below ground, according to MTA authorities. The outage added to the already-slow MTA above-ground service on Monday as trains were running on a weekend schedule for President's Day. A Shake Shack worker told the New York Daily News he was in the middle of blending a milkshake when everything turned off at 9am. 'I had my hands on the blender and it goes pitch black. Boom!' Brian Quintana, said, “It happened fast. It was pitch black for several minutes then some light came on. We were escorted out about 10 minutes later.” Sirens reportedly went off at 9.47am, and employees were escorted out. One Twitter user tweeted a picture of the dark corridors filled with people, and the caption, “The dark in Grand Central-some people taking selfies. Workers at shops out in the cold.” NBC reported that all Metro North trains were diverted to the upper level tracks where the power was on.