NY Governor Tours Putnam Storm Damage

PUTNAM COUNTY, NY — As the county's residents recover from a line of severe thunderstorms that included two destructive tornadoes and a macroburst, New York state has deployed people and equipment to help.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo toured several of the most damaged neighborhoods and gave a briefing Wednesday morning.

"As everyone knows by now, there was a band of severe storms that moved through the area yesterday," he said. "It was not unique to New York, it was the Northeast and it came up through the western part of the country. The severe thunderstorms were very, very bad. You had hail the size of golf balls. The bands were fairly narrow and limited and fast moving, but they did a significant amount of damage as they went past.

"I urge caution for people and to tell their children, if they see a power line in the street it might be live so they shouldn't go near it. If there's a tree in a precarious position, they should be careful with that. We're expecting more rain. The ground with get softer and trees that are in a bad position, it may actually get worse."

Send us your photos of the storm and the damage to lanning.taliaferro@patch.com

Cuomo said an additional 1,100 utility workers would come in to augment the normal complement of 4,300 utility workers locally.

"Department of Transportation is on site," he said. "They have hundreds of pieces of equipment. They'll be working with the County Executive to coordinate resources as well as the local town supervisors. Department of Homeland Security for the state has hundreds of generators, 60,000 meals for people who may be displaced, et cetera."

Cuomo said people without power should keep this number handy: 1-800-342-3377.

"If you are without power and you have an emergency situation, we can bring emergency generators, we can bring meals, we can bring water, so let us know if that situation exists," he said.

"I'd like to thank the County Executive and the Supervisor and all their teams that did extraordinary work. You know we tend to focus on the negative in these situations. What hasn't been done, what power hasn't been restored. We also need to remember that you had people out all night long in the storm starting early yesterday afternoon, putting themselves in danger. Leaving their families and working tremendously hard so the damage wasn't worse. And we thank all of them and we truly appreciate their service."

SEE:

• Metro-North Limits Wednesday AM Service After Tuesday Storm
• Cuomo Declares States Of Emergency In Several HV Counties
• Tornado Spotted In Hudson Valley Tuesday
• Preliminary Storm Damage Report: National Weather Service
• School Closings, Delays In Storm's Aftermath
• 137,336 Out Of Power Wednesday AM In The Hudson Valley

Images via Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Office