Central Hudson said Saturday morning that electric service has been restored to more than half of the nearly 110,000 customers affected by the storm, though strong winds continue to cause problems across the region.
As of 7 a.m., approximately 53,000 customers remained without electric service in nearly 1,200 individual damage locations, following a damaging nor’easter that brought soaking rains, sustained winds, powerful wind gusts and nearly two feet of heavy, wet snow to some northern areas, according to Central Hudson.
The greatest number of locations without power are in Dutchess County (24,000), followed by Greene (19,000) and Ulster (10,000) counties.
This storm is one of the most powerful to hit the Mid-Hudson Valley during the last 50 years. In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, more than 2.5 million outages are reported, with more than 350,000 power interruptions in New York alone.
Central Hudson crews and damage assessment teams continue to address power outages and survey damage locations. Mutual aid crews from Hydro-Quebec are assisting in the power restoration efforts, and repair crews from Vermont utility Green Mountain Power and the New York Power Authority are due to arrive later today. Assistance is being sought from other utility companies, however many of the available resources are already addressing the significant level of damage present throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Wind gusts are expected to persist through Saturday, with the potential to bring down more trees and limbs, causing new power outages. “We expect service restoration to take place over the course of several days due to the severity and widespread nature of the damage, with the vast majority of impacted customers’ service restored by Wednesday afternoon,” said Charles A. Freni, senior vice president of customer services and transmission & distribution. “As the winds begin to subside, we will be able to complete our damage assessments and provide restoration estimates for our customers by area,” he explained.