State of Emergency Declared for 4 Hudson Valley Counties
Over 85% of all New Yorkers without power are in the Hudson Valley.
On Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a State of Emergency for Dutchess, Putnam, Sullivan and Westchester counties in order to help expedite recovery operations.
"First responders, utility workers and thousands of other individuals have been working around the clock to help Hudson Valley communities recover from this week's winter storm and a great deal of progress has been made," Cuomo said. "That said, with tens of thousands of New Yorkers still without power, a great deal of work remains and we will not rest until it is complete."
Friday’s Nor’easter caused extensive damage to electric utility infrastructure, including hundreds of broken utility poles and damage in remote, hard-to-reach locations, making the completion of restoration efforts extremely challenging, according to the Governor’s Office.
The governor also doubled the number of National Guard members available to help with recovery efforts, ranging from debris clearance to traffic control. The total deployment now stands at 200.
Crews from the New York State Department of Transportation have also been dispatched to assist local areas with storm cleanup, debris removal and support utility restoration.
In the Hudson Valley, over 1,000 operators and supervisors, 388 large dump trucks, 23 chippers, three tree crew bucket trucks, 12 signal trucks, and 91 loaders were deployed.
Senior administration officials remain on site in each of the four counties as they help lead recovery efforts.
- Director of State Operations Cathy Calhoun has been deployed to Dutchess County.
- Homeland Security and Emergency Services Commissioner Roger Parrino is in Putnam County.
- Public Service Commission Chair John Rhodes is in Westchester County.
- New York Power Authority Senior Vice President of Public and Regulatory Affairs Kimberly Harriman and Regional Operations Superintendent Mark Olig are in Sullivan County.
As of this writing, there are 137,000 customers in New York State without power. Of that, over 85 percent are in the Hudson Valley, according to the Governor’s office.
New York's utilities have a total of 4,910 in-house workers and contractors working on storm restoration efforts.
National Grid and PSEG Long Island are moving workers and equipment to assist other New York locations.
National Grid will be providing 48 line workers to Central Hudson and 40 line workers to NYSEG.
PSEG Long Island will be providing 85 line workers to Con Edison and 60 line workers to NYSEG.
The New York State Power Authority has deployed its transmission team to Central Hudson to help fix their 69 KV sub-transmission system and 45 line workers and 15 bucket trucks from its municipal utility customers are assisting in the Central Hudson and NYSEG regions.
In addition, the NYPA requested help from ElectriCities of North Carolina. This includes 18 utility workers and 5 utility trucks from ElectriCities to help Con Edison in Westchester County.
The NYPA also obtained resources from Niagara Peninsula in in Ontario, Canada for 10 utility workers and 7 trucks to help Central Hudson.
Below is a breakdown of outages by county, according to the Governor's Office:
- Columbia 1,906
- Dutchess 18,416
- Greene 114
- Orange 1,758
- Putnam 19,881
- Rockland 676
- Sullivan 15,889
- Ulster 3,056
- Westchester 64,621
For more information on Central Hudson outages Click Here
For more information on NYSEG outages Click Here
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