Thousands of homes in the Hudson Valley lost power due to powerful thunderstorms on Saturday. Central Hudson says advance preparations helped the utility restore power quickly.
The storm left 12,000 customers without power, with Ulster and Orange counties hardest hit.
Straight line winds of 50 miles per hour caused tree damage throughout the region.
Central Hudson spokesperson Joe Jenkins said the utility began preparing for a thunderstorm days before.
“We worked through the night on Saturday night and throughout the day on Sunday, and we were able to get virtually everyone restored by Sunday evening,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins said the frequency of damaging storms has increased in recent years and could be linked to climate change. He said Central Hudson has worked to harden systems against these kinds of storms, replace aging infrastructure, upped standards for system upgrades, and is using AI to help predict tree fall.
“We've also significantly revamped our vegetation management or our tree trimming program. Fallen trees and tree limbs is the number one cause for storm-related outages, and that was certainly the case in this storm,” Jenkins said.
