Community Corner

O&R: Outage Map Back; 51,000 Rockland Customers Still Waiting for Power

Local officials are calling for better cooperation with O&R, which reported 51,000 customers in Rockland County without power at noon Friday. UPDATE with O&R distributing dry ice at Provident Bank Park 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday.

 

Update at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 2

The Village of Nyack had a conference call with O&R Friday morning and during the 11 a.m. meeting, they reported:

Find out what's happening in Pearl Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"51,000 people are out. Global restoration for 90 percent of customers by Nov. 11 with the national guard coming in to clear roads so they can get trucks through, they should have a better idea as to (more local estimated restoration times) hopefully tomorrow," said Mary Lorenzini, Nyack Village trustee. "That’s their global projection. The guard is coming in tonight. Once they find out how they can specifically target regions, they’ll post on their website, the anticipated regional (restoration times)."

Update at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 2

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Orange & Rockland Utilities will be distributing dry ice at Provident Bank Park in Pomona from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday.

They will also have a distribution at the Bergen County Office of Emergency Management at 285 Campgaw Road in Mahwah, NJ from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

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Orange & Rockland Utilities representatives met with town supervisors, highway superintendents and state representatives Friday morning to discuss the recovery from Hurricane Sandy.

_According to Orangetown Supervisor Andy Stewart_, one product of that meeting is O&R will now be accepting lists from the towns of priority roads to be opened first. The idea is to get as many roads open as quickly as possible.

Orangetown Highway Superintendent James Dean said Thursday that town and county roads still closed in Rockland were waiting on O&R, which must either remove downed wires themselves or determine that conditions are safe for highway workers to remove fallen trees.

Dean also said that a representative from O&R will meet with Rockland County's highway superintendents every morning until all roads are cleared.

At 10 p.m. Thursday, O&R reported 160,000 total customers without power with 72,000 restored. That includes 63,000 in Rockland County still waiting for electricity

Orangetown Police Chief Kevin Nulty said that as of 6 p.m. Thursday, 7,537 customers in Orangetown were still without power, down from 11,000 at 8 a.m. The number dropped from 3,700 to 2,372 in Nyack.

O&R's outage map was down with technical difficulties Thursday morning, but was back up that night and can be found _here_.

The following is O&R's explanation of its plan to restore it system.

  • Damage assessment on state, county and major local roads.
  • Reconstruction of the distribution system on state roads, followed by county roads. After that work is done, crews will be shifted to restoring circuits feeding critical infrastructure and services. These critical facilities include local governments whose operations provide essential services required by residents.
  • Restoration then moves onto critical infrastructure followed by the largest block of customers out of service, smaller blocks of customers and then individual customer service outages.
  • As restoration continues, site safety personnel are working to ensure public safety by securing downed wires on major roads.


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