21.7K Still Without Power: Friday PM Report

More than 21,700 households in the Hudson Valley are still waiting for the lights to come back on as of Friday afternoon. That's down almost 10,000 from what was reported earlier in the day. Two devastating nor’easters, which were almost back to back, caused downed trees and power lines. The number of power outages jumped six-fold from what progress had been made by the start of the second storm to its aftermath.

Con Edison’s outage map said that 11,500 of its customers were without electricity Friday afternoon, with more than 10,600 of them in Westchester. That is down from 12,200 Friday morning. The power company serves Westchester and New York City.

A majority of the outages was set for an estimated restoration time of 11 p.m. Friday, March 9. The rest are set for 11 p.m. Saturday.

NYSEG cut the number of customers with no power by half over the course of the day Friday. By the afternoon, there were 5,103 households in the dark, with the majority — 3,651 — in Westchester County. Putnam was down to 946 from 3,587. There are 506 customers still without electricity in Dutchess.

Assemblyman David Buchwald, D-White Plains, was not pleased with the way Con Edisin and NYSEG handled the storm repairs.

“The storm response by ConEd and NYSEG failed on so many levels. They published power restoration goals and kept missing them,” he said. “Often they failed to respond to local government officials asking them to restore power to essential facilities and coordinate downed tree removal. Online information was frequently inadequate and far too many robocalls told residents their power was restored, when it wasn’t. Their response to this storm is unacceptable and we must hold them accountable.”

Central Hudson customers without power are down to 84 by Friday afternoon. That includes 18 in Dutchess, 11 in Orange, 39 in Putnam and 16 in Ulster.

Central Hudson said the March 2 nor’easter was the fourth most destructive storm in its history, even besting Hurricane Sandy. The March 7 storm was the 10th most severe.

O&R said the majority of its Orange County customers would have power restored by 11:59 p.m. Friday. As of Friday afternoon, there are 246 customers without electricity.

For Rockland County, there are 5,727 still waiting for the lights to come back on. For them, the estimated time for restoration is 11:59 p.m. Sunday. It could be sooner depending on the location.

Photo credit: Con Edison.