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NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― Con Edison, CEO Kevin Burke, held his first news conference about the blackout today. It is the first press conference the company has held since the power outage plagued Queens. Burke began the conference, apologizing to customers for the inconvenience and attributing the outages to an unprecedented failure of multiple power lines.

"It was really a very extraordinary event, something that I've never seen before," Burke said. "I don't know right now what has happened." To hasten the restoration of power to as many as 20,000 customers, or about 80,000 people, electrical crews from as far away as Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio were on their way to New York to assist Con Ed in the restoration of the network, Bloomberg said.

Con Ed crews "are going manhole to manhole, pulling up every line," the mayor said. As workers inspected underground cables and transformers, Bloomberg said, they "found more damage than they thought they would find. They were surprised."

Con Ed spokesman Mike Clendenin said the damage to underground equipment in Queens is "extensive," including burned out cables and transformers that need to either be repaired or replaced. The equipment will later be analyzed to determine how the damage contributed to the blackout, Clendenin said.

A round of thunderstorms Friday made the problem worse, flooding manholes that had to be emptied before work could continue. In addition, the bad weather knocked out some major circuits that had only recently been restored.

Con Edison hasn't been able to explain why the power distribution system began failing in the area on Monday at the height of a heat wave. But Burke was able to detail the damage. Burke said the problem began with failures on a series of feeder cables, circuits that carry 27,000 volts and supply entire neighborhoods with power.

There are 22 such feeder cables in the network serving the area with the outages, and they are designed to work redundantly, meaning if one fails, others can pick up the load.

Starting Monday, however, multiple feeders failed, leaving 10 out of service at the worst of the crisis. Now, only one is out, but the repair work is far from over. Burke said the current problem involves lower-voltage cables that were apparently damaged by carrying larger amounts of current than normal while Con Edison tried to keep the system running without its main feeders.

The utility company has fielded a chorus of criticism, from citizens irate at how long they're waiting for their power to the charge from City Council member Eric Gioia that Con Ed's "failure to accurately report the extent of this crisis has slowed response time and caused critical delays."

The utility originally said the electrical failures affected just a couple thousand private and business customers in Queens. But on Friday, Con Edison provided a new estimate of 25,000 customers, or as many as 100,000 people.

Joseph Bruno, commissioner of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said Saturday that power had been restored to no more than 15 percent of customers.

In Astoria, some residents found their own solutions. One barber, without electricity set up his generator right on 30th Avenue and cut hair on the sidewalk.

"It's very dark and you can't really see inside," said salon owner Rocco Aliberti, who's Hair Fantasy salon been without power since Monday. "It's very bad. We try to do as much as we can do. I've got to pay bills." On Saturday, the mayor and his top commissioners offered a lineup of official solutions to residents' needs.

Emergency service employees were reaching out to the most vulnerable city residents -- the elderly and the ill, including diabetics whose insulin must be kept under refrigeration. Insulin was among medication carried by mobile health centers driven to about a dozen locations in Queens.

In addition, the Red Cross had distributed 20,000 bottles of water and 15,000 meals. And 16 senior centers -- normally closed on weekends -- were open on Saturday and Sunday.

Con Edison was also working Saturday to resolve unrelated outages in suburban Westchester County. About 3,700 customers there remained without power Saturday afternoon, down from an estimated 35,000 in the county who lost power during thunderstorms.

Bloomberg praised utility crews out in the heat and rain, urging New Yorkers who see them to thank them for working "very, very long hours in conditions that are not always pleasant."

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)