On Tuesday morning over 3,000 customers in the Town of Rochester and around Poughkeepsie were still without electricity, said Central Hudson.
“It was Fourth of July, and I had been out. A tree fell where my car usually is, so I was safe. My husband was home. The dog was going crazy. He said it was like 30 seconds, and then all the trees fell, on the shed. There was trees and debris everywhere. Chairs flying,” said Linda Young, who lives in Accord. She said Monday evening that she still had no phone, internet, or electricity.
Young was one of several town of Rochester residents at a Central Hudson distribution event, where the power company was giving away dry ice, regular ice and water.
A Central Hudson worker explained to Rochester resident Russell Grey that he should keep the dry ice in his freezer so as not to freeze the food in his refrigerator. Grey is 89 years old, lives alone, and said he doesn’t have a backup generator.
“I don't know, I just deal with it, that's all. Whatever is handed to you, you do it,” Grey said.
Joe Jenkins, Director of Public Relations for Central Hudson, said Tuesday morning 80% of the almost 57,000 customers impacted by the July Fourth storms have had their power restored. Jenkins said most of the remaining customers without power are scheduled to be restored by the end of the day Tuesday.
He said fallen tree limbs are the biggest culprit for power outages.
“This one certainly felt a little bit more significant. We sort of measure severity in terms of the individual locations that our crews need to address to make repairs, and this storm was well over 600 individual locations, which is significant.” Jenkins said.
In the past few years, Hudson Valley communities have often seen their power slow to come back following major weather events. In June, 50 mile per hour straight-line winds caused 12,000 customers mostly in Ulster and Orange counties to lose power.
Town of Rochester Supervisor Erin Enouen said this weekend’s storm was one of the worst people have experienced in recent years.
“Mostly people don't know what's happening. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of trust in some of the deadlines, because it's an ever evolving, changing situation. I think people feel that they're in the dark, like figuratively and literally,” said Enouen.
Jerry Fornino, director of Emergency Management for the town, said making repairs safely takes time.
“It's not just a wire down here or there. We're talking poles are snapped off halfway, the transformers are in the road with trees on top of them. And the only way to handle that is you got to shut all the power down because you can't take a chance. So for them to work on just one of these transformer issues, you got to shut the whole line down,” said Fornino.
Fornino said after people lost power there were eight firefighters from the Accord Fire District who responded to more than 60 calls for over 30 hours straight.
“Remember, they got other jobs. So they might get done fighting fires at three, four in the morning. He works for the DEC, for the state, he's got to be back at work at seven in the morning, so it's not fun,” Fornino said.
Stephanie Pinto, from Accord, said the storm hit hard and fast, but she’s handling it OK.
“Because of the heat, I was convinced we were going to have a power outage. I did not anticipate 20 minutes of devastation, which is what this was. So, I drew buckets and buckets of water, which I kept in my shower. I have tons and tons of glass bottles, and I filled every one of them, and huge jugs of glass, so I have plenty of water. I just had no electricity, but thank goodness it wasn't 100 degrees,” Pinto said.
Supervisor Enouen said people without generators have had the most challenges, like Kerhonkson resident Peter Mobijohn.
“We don't have a generator, and our neighbors have generators. You hear them humming all over the place, but we don't have it. We don't like generators, it seems, but I think we're gonna like them now, because of this mess we're into. It's just so expensive to buy one,” Mobijohn said.
Enouen explained that most residents use well water, which run on electricity. No electricity means no water.
But Mobijohn is making the best of it. “So I gotta go swimming in the pond just to wash up and all of that, you know. But you got to do what you have to do, right?”
Stephanie Pinto said she’s grateful for all the help she’s received, and said “thank you to Central Hudson and all the other guys who've come in from Pennsylvania and wherever. Thank you.”
