Storm rips through area, causing outages

Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R) continues to repair damage and restore power outages that resulted from severe thunderstorms and strong winds yesterday evening.

According to the company, O&R crews worked through the night last night and early this morning to restore service to approximately 32,201 customers whose power was knocked out by the storm.

O&R says it will bring on an additional 350 mutual aid workers today to respond to the remaining outages and expects 90% of those customers without power due to last night’s storm to be restored by 11 p.m. tonight, with most of the remaining customers to be restored by 11 p.m. tomorrow night.

As of 12:30 p.m. today, O&R says about 3,881 Orange County customers remain without power. Below are local estimates from O&R (actual local numbers may vary):

Warwick Town — 1,267

Woodbury — 1,632

Monroe Town — 606

O&R’s outage map can be found at the following link: outagemap.oru.com/external/default.html.

O&R said priority will be given to clearing downed wires blocking roads and making repairs to critical and emergency facilities (police and fire stations, and hospitals, for example) and to those locations where the repair will provide power to the largest number of customers as quickly as possible. Then, crews will restore smaller outages and individual customers’ outages.

Dry ice distribution

According to Orange County Emergency Services and O&R, affected residents will be able to pick up dry ice today, June 27, at:

- Warwick Town Hall (32 Kings Highway, Warwick) in the police department parking lot from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

- Woodbury Common (498 Red Apple Court, Central Valley, Remote Lot #39 – Across from Saks Fifth Avenue) from 4 to 6 p.m.

Safety tips from O&R

For safety’s sake, don’t touch or approach any downed wire. Assume it is energized and dangerous. Call O&R immediately toll-free 1-877-434-4100. Depending on the situation, you may also want to call your local police to divert traffic until an O&R crew arrives.

Maintain a distance of at least 50 feet from downed wires and anything they are in contact with including puddles of water and fences. Supervise your children so that they are not in the vicinity and keep pets on a leash or otherwise secure.

If a fallen wire is draped over a car, do not approach the car to make rescue attempts. Remain a safe distance away and try to keep the occupant of the vehicle calm. If possible, emergency personnel should handle the situation.

Pole-top transformers --- those small, grey-colored metal drums attached to the wires at the tops of most utility poles --- also should be avoided when they have been knocked to the ground.

Portable generators pose a serious hazard if used improperly. They should be used and installed according to the manufacturer’s instructions. A wrong connection could feed electricity back through the lines and endanger our repair crews. Never plug a generator into a wall unit, use it indoors or set it up outdoors near open home windows or air-handling vents.

Have emergency equipment within reach — portable radio, flashlights, spare batteries, first aid kit, cell phone and important medications. Keep O&R’s toll-free number 1-877-434-4100 near the phone to report power outages.

Remember: if the base station of your cordless phone plugs into the wall, your phone will be unusable during a power outage.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include new outage data from O&R and dry ice distribution sites.