O&R Declares Storm Watch Wednesday

PEARL RIVER, NY — O&R has declared a Storm Watch in response to the weather forecast for strong thunderstorms and high winds expected to hit our region Wednesday, and more high winds predicted tomorrow.

O&R is prepared to respond to any service problems that occur.

The company was busy dealing with the damages caused by high winds this past weekend.

Actually, it's been a tough month.

O&R had 12,100 customers experience outages on Feb. 13 and 10,500 customers lost power during the severe thunderstorms and high winds of Saturday night.

Wednesday's chance of severe storm activity has the potential to cause power line damage and electric service interruptions.

O&R company and contractor overhead line crews are ramped up to respond to outages as are damage assessment, site safety, customer service operations and the wide array of O&R teams that support those functions, officials said. O&R also has hired 60 additional contract workers to supplement its workforce to aid in the field forces’ repair efforts.

Remember, there are several ways customers can report outages and check service restoration status:

• Go to www.oru.com from any computer or web-enabled mobile device;
• Use the O&R mobile app from your iPhone, iPad or Android device;
• Text “OUT” to 69678 (myORU); or
• Call Customer Assistance at 1-877-434-4100

To help its customers prepare to weather a storm, O&R offers these tips:

· For safety’s sake, don’t touch or approach any downed wire. Assume it is energized and dangerous. Call O&R immediately toll-free 1-877-434-4100. Depending on the situation, you may also want to call your local police to divert traffic until an O&R crew arrives.

· Maintain a distance of at least 50 feet from downed wires and anything they are in contact with including puddles of water and fences. Supervise your children so that they are not in the vicinity and keep pets on a leash or otherwise secure.

· If a fallen wire is draped over a car, do not approach the car and make rescue attempts. Remain a safe distance away, and try to keep the occupant of the vehicle calm. If possible, emergency personnel should handle the situation.

· Have emergency equipment within reach --- portable radio, flashlights, spare batteries, first aid kit, cell phone and important medications. Keep O&R’s toll-free number 1-877-434-4100 near the phone to report power outages.

· If you experience a power outage, don’t assume that O&R automatically knows about it or that someone else will report it. To be sure the outage is reported, please call O&R toll-free at 1-877-434-4100 to let O&R know what happened. The more information you can provide, the more O&R can help you.

· Remember: if the base station of your cordless phone plugs into the wall, your phone will be unusable during a power outage.

For more information, visit O&R’s Storm Center at www.oru.com.