60,000 Still Without Power In The Hudson Valley

A full week after a lethal nor'easter, and a day after a second damaging snowfall, the four utilities serving the Hudson Valley continued to work on restoring electric power to customers and opening up roads blocked by downed wires.

For example, Con Edison reported Thursday that in Wednesday's storm, about 200 roads in Westchester County were blocked by trees and branches knocked down by the heavy, wet snow and gusty winds. In many of those instances, electrical wires were tangled in the trees. Those wires had to be de-energized and untangled before the trees could be cut and removed.

"We are now into our 6th day of storm cleanup from 2 significant winter storms," said Putnam County Executive MaryEllen Odell, "Not only do we have residents that are still without power from the first storm but now we have added additional residents as a result of the second storm. While these storms were truly severe I am very dismayed by the lack of realistic restoration times, this is a matter that will be addressed by this administration, the state and the utility companies."

• O&R reports 27,520 customers without power, most in Rockland County and Bergen, NJ, from Wednesday's storm.
• Con Edison reports 19,400 customers without power in Westchester county. About 14,000 of them lost power in Wednesday's storm.
• NYSEG reports 10,511 customers without power in Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties.
• Central Hudson reports 2,929 customers without power.

NYSEG said Thursday night it expects to return power to at least 90 percent of customers in the Brewster Division by 11:45 p.m., Saturday.

Con Ed said of all the crews working in the area to make repairs from the first nor'easter, 100 mutual aid workers were reassigned to their home utilities to deal with damage in their own service areas caused by Wednesday's storm. Instead, 100 Con Edison workers assigned to Puerto Rico, who were due to return from their assignments next week, will return this weekend. Those workers have been restoring power to the island following last year’s hurricanes.

SEE ALSO:

• Snow Totals: Town By Town In The Hudson Valley
• Power and Accountability: Westchester
• Another Nor'easter May Affect The Hudson Valley Next Week

PHOTO: Power line downed by tree in Putnam County/ Lanning Taliaferro