WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR THE POWER STORY. From Consolidated Edison. March 6, 2018. 8:15 A.M.

Con Edison has issued this detailed analysis of the Westchester County Outages town-by-town. The first of its kind during the power restoration:The complete chart is available at this link:

https://apps.coned.com/stormcenter/external/report.html?report=report-panel-westchester

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. March 8, 11:30 P.M.:

The Con Edison Storm Center Outage Map which shows in real time the number of power outages remaining to be restored in the County reports 33,034 Customers (individual meters are “Customers” in Con Ed parlance), remaining without power from now named Tropical Storm Reilly (though gusts came within 1 mile per hour of Category 1 Hurricane classification – 73 miles per hour).

In White Plains, 20 Outages remain with 360 Customers without power. Very little progress was made since 2 PM in White Plains today.

Here are the Customers still suffering in the largest outages among cities and towns as compiled by WPCNR from the numbers on the Con Ed Storm Map

Peekskill area-118 Outages, 1,240 Customers Powerless

Scarsdale and Mamaroneck Ave vicinity; 65 Outages, 1,177 Customers Out

Shrub Oak: 24 Outages, 1,110 Customers Without Power

Mount Vernon area-125 Outages, 1,042 Customers No Power

Pinebrook area: 92 Outages, 1,135  Customers Powerless

Armonk: 61 Outages,975 Customers Out

East of Interstate 684: 37 Outages, 313 Customers Unconnected

Cortland: 26 Outages, 68 customers, No Power

Mohegan Lake: 32 Outages, 314 Customers Out

Jefferson Valley’Yorktown: 14 Outages, 700 Customers Out

Mount Kisco–26 Outages, 121 Customers No Power

Millwood–29 Outages -301 Unconnected

Croton on Hudson:  30 Outages,425 Customers Power Out

Chappaqua: 57 Outages, 768 Customers No Power

Ossining and East: 51 Outages, 699 Customers Without Power

Briarcliff: 23 Outages, 187 Customers Unconnected

Pleasantville: 20 Outages, 243 Customers Power Out

Thornwood: 48 Outages, 415 Customers No Power

Hawthorne: 14 Outages, 686 Customers Out

Rye City/ Rye Brook: 50 Outages, 646 Customers Powerless

Harrison: 63 Outages, 650 Customers Down

Mamaroneck: 73 Outages, 807 Customers Out

Larchmont: 66 Outages, 968 Customers Down

Elmsford; 31 Outages, 434 Customers No Service

Dobbs Ferry: 21 Outages, 73 Customers down.

Hastings-on-Hudson: 29 Outages, 370 Customers No Service

Pelham vicinity: 69 Outages, 564 Customers Power Gone

Union Avenue area: 40 Outages: 162 Customers Out

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WPCNR THE POWER STORY. Statement from County Executive George Latimer March 5, 2018:

“Days after Winter Storm Riley thousands of Westchester residents are still sleeping in cold homes with no lights and downed power lines right outside their doors.  I find this disgusting.

I am outraged at both Con Edison and NYSEG’s slow and inadequate response.

On Sunday, I expressed doubt that NYSEG would be able to meet their timeline of restoring power by Monday night – unfortunately I was correct.

Today, NYSEG pushed back their timetable to 11:45 p.m. Tuesday.  The people of Westchester, who pay both Con Edison and NYSEG for their services, deserve better.  I’m calling on both companies to bring in more crews, and have their workers work around the clock to restore power to the people of Westchester. 

My team has also reached out to the Chair of the Public Service Commission, John Rhodes, to again ask for an investigation of both Con Edison and NYSEG’s response to the storm.

Additionally, my team is already taking steps to prepare for the additional storm that is set to hit Westchester Wednesday evening.

To County residents, if you do have power I am asking you to please offer your home, a hot meal or a shower to family, friends and neighbors.  To those County resident without power, please keep your chin up – I, along with my team, are working day and night to advocate for you.”

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WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey. March 5, 2018 UPDATED 12:30 PM E.S.T.:UPDATED 1:30 PM EST.

Con Edison has moved back their estimate for complete restoration of power in Westchester County ( as of 11:30 A.M). to Thursday, by midnight according to their Storm Center “realtime” Map of outages.

Con Ed and New York State Electric and Gas are sticking to their promises of completing restoration by late today for NYSEG and 90% by Con Ed’s “powerless” by 11 PM tomorrow night, according to today’s Storm Update from Westchester County.

In a briefing in a Westchester County news conference Monday morning, Joan McDonald the County Director of Operations, said NYSEG was still maintaining it would complete its restoration of the now 19,802  NYSEG Customers in the northeast part of the county still without power by 11:45 PM today.(Editor’s Note: This deadline was missed, and NYSEG now promises it will have all their Customers restored by 11 PM Tuesday evening.)

She said Con Ed was still promising they would have power restored to 90% of the 41,261 (her number given in the briefing) without power by 11 PM tomorrow Tuesday, March 6.

You can see Ms. McDonald’s briefing on the County Facebook page, by going to westchestergov.com and clicking on the Facebook icon, and in the left hand column, go to Videos. Ms. McDonald’s video will come up, or paste this link into your browser:

https://www.facebook.com/westchestergov/videos/10156035280602092/

The Con Ed Pace of restoring power slowed overnight repowering approximately 1,000 Customers in the last 9 hours to bring down the number of Customers (a “customer” is counted as one meter) without power in Westchester County to  43,385 caused by 3,905 outages.

A phalanx of an estimated 100 repair crews from a number of states (Bob McGee of Con Edison said they were from Canada, Wisconsin and Texas) to help Con Ed with the restoration was assembling this morning at Rye.

This, despite the fact that the Public Service Commission Chairman John Rhodes at the news conference held late Sunday afternoon said “we are on our own,” unaware that power crews were unroute from Texas, Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan.

With the new crews supplementing the Con Edison force,  the 43,385 “powerless” figure may begin to decline significantly by tomorrow.

The number of Westchester residents without power is up since 2 this morning when 41,654 had been reported on the Storm Center map as without power. Con Ed media spokesperson said the number of Customers without power out can go up and down because of switch off activity.

On Sunday, County Executive George Latimer in a news conference criticized Con Edison for not turning off power quickly when cities and towns had DPW crews ready to go and therefore they could not attack the tree and debris damage because of live power wires in the fallen trees. Mr. Latimer and the officials at the news conference said Con Ed came in quickly to make repairs once the debris were cleared to make the fixes necessary.

Today, WPCNR learned of an isolated experience in White Plains where White Plains DPW arrived with five trucks to clear a tree that was tangled in wires. The WP crew cleared the tree by 5 PM Sunday afternoon. As of 8 A.M. Monday morning no Con Ed repair crew had shown up to restore power to the block. This may be an isolated incident.

If persons have experienced similar experiences in Con Ed repair crews appearing on the scene after trees are cleared, please advise to wpcnr@aol.com

The manager of Stop & Shop in White Plains said the store expected to have enough food to handle the rush after power is restored to replenish spoiled food.

The manager said after about 2 hours of losing power, the food begins to spoil, and should not be consumed.

The status numbers WPCNR totaled from areas in Westchester County with the highest number outages published this morning at 1:30 A.M. have not changed too much.

Ms. McDonald said the county is also monitoring price gouging that has been reported as a result of the storm. She said that Con Edison has classified this storm as the fifth worst storm they have ever handled. She said she did not have the numbers from Con Edison on how many persons total are affected. She said the National Guard role was as the communities see fit, such as debris removal.

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County Executive George Latimer Briefing the Media on the recovery efforts to restore power

WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey.March 5, 2018:

County Executive George Latimer in a news conference late Sunday afternoon said Con Edison was not prepared to handle the storm that blasted Westchester with  45 mile per hour to 73 MPH wind gusts (at Westchester Airport) uprooted hundreds of trees, cutting off power to 72,000 Westchester Customers by Saturday morning.

Con Edison, after crews cleared debris was making up the number of restorations at the rate of about a 1,000 an hour. Since the 4 PM news conference ended at 5 PM yesterday, 12,000 customers (a customer represents one meter), had been restored bring the number in the county without power to  41,654 at 1:30 AM Monday morning.

Latimer praised the county towns and cities public works crews whom he said were ready to clear debris and fallen trees in areas that had lost power, but the mayors of all the towns told him that Con Edison delayed in shutting power to areas where debris had blocked roads, delaying the rollout of Con Ed’s own recovery efforts.

Asked by WPCNR how many cities and towns had reported significant Con Ed delay in shutting down power to the afflicted areas of their towns, Latimer said

“All of them, all 45.”

Asked what was the average time of delay the towns experienced, Latimer said he did not have an average. Asked if after the roads were cleared, was Con Ed speedy in rushing restoration crews, he and the entourage in chorus, said they were.

Asked as of 4:30 PM what percentage of  the Westchester towns and cities had cleared fallen debris and trees making them Con Ed-ready, a Westchester public safety official said the county did not have a percentage of how many ready-to-restore cities and towns were waiting for Con Ed as of 5 PM Sunday.

Latimer said he and his staff had inspected the damage in Yorktown, Bedford and areas in the north end of the county and said the damage was “devastating.” He began the news conference at the Hudson Valley Transportation Center Sunday  afternoon, announcing  54,000 Con Edison Customers were still without power, and 22,000 customers of New York State Electric and Gas were unconnected.

He said the chief of NYSEG apologized to Mr. Latimer for NYSEG being “unresponsive” to county officials Friday evening and communications had improved.( Latimer had sent out a news release castigating the NYSEG lack of communication. )

Latimer said Con Edison has promised full restoration by Tuesday about noon.  NYSEG is promising full restoration sometime today Monday.

Progress in restoring power to Westchester residents who are growing increasingly angry, Latimer said, at 48 hours or more wihout power, has progressed since the 5 PM Sunday hour. A total of 12, 363 have been restored since then according to the Con Edison Storm Center map, leaving 41,654 still in the dark and the cold.

The County Executive said traffic lights at crossroads were still out in a number of communities at 5 PM and motorists should come to full stops before entering the intersections.

An intersection a half mile from the Transportation Center where the news conference was being conducted had just a stop sign (seen slightly to the left of center  in the middle of the intersection as traffic lights were dark. No blinking caution light. No police presence.  This was the busy speedway of Route 100 at the Hospital Road overpass.

The head of the Public Service Commission said snow in the midwest meant that work crews from Ohio, Illinois Michigan could not be counted on to supplement Con Ed and NYSEG crews.”We are on our own,” he said. He also promised the press the Public Service Commission would be taking a hard look at how the utilities handled this storm damage. A representive from the Governor’s office said 200 National Guardsmen were being sent to Westchester to deploy as the county sees fit.

The media awaits the County Executive, shown in maroon sweater, right background

Here is how the Con Ed Storm Center Map shows the outages at 1:30 A.M. Monday morning:

WHITE PLAINS– 24 OUTAGES, 363 Customers without power

Pelham: 71 Outages, 545 Customers No Power

Mamaroneck: 74 Outages; 919 Customers Powerless

Larchmont: 530 Outages; 2,050 Customers No power

Harrison: 74 Outages, 930 Customers Out

Elmsford: 37 Outages, 1,039 Customers No Power

Quakeridge area: 55 Outages, 1,448 Customers Out

Bronxville: 62 Outages, 637 Customers Powerless

Sleepy Hollow: 20 Outages, 368 Customers Out

Hawthorne: 16 Outages, 375 Out

Thornwood: 18 Outages, 163 Powerless

Dobbs Ferry: 24 Outages, 156 No Power

Yorktown: 45 Outages, 292 Customers Out

Mount Vernon (either side of the Bronx River Parkway): 45 Outages, 1,617 Customers W/O Power

Scarsdale: 30 Outages, 761 Out

Greenville: 33 Outages, 179 Out of Power

Hastings on Hudson: 36 Outages, 415 W/O Power

Valhalla Area: 30 Outages, 1,318 No Power

Peekskill Area: 91 Outages, 1,557 Customers Out

Mohegan Lake: 36 Outages, 1,100 Customer Powerless

Shrub Oak: 31 Outages, 1,091 Customers Unconnected

 Mt Kisco-Bedford area: 73 Outages, 504 Customers Out

Pleasantville: 57 Outages, 585 Customers, No Power

Armonk: 41 Outages, 1,065 Customers Out

Rye City, Rye Brook Area: 58 Outages, 509 Customers Not Connected

Chapaqua Millbrook: 51 Outages, 706 Customers No Power

Ossining: 63 Outages, 1,028 Customers Out

Croton Harmon, Crotonville: 68 Outages, 607 OUT