Nearly 100,000 customers remained without power in the Lower Hudson Valley on Sundayand officials say it could be Tuesday night before all the lights and heat are back on.
Some schools have already announced they'll be closed Monday.
Most of the outages were scattered across Westchester County, with Consolidated Edison reporting some 48,700 customers without power. Another 22,287Westchester customers served by New York State Electric and Gas in the northern part of the county were out.
The bulk of the outages – 4,000 or more — were in Yorktown, New Rochelle and Mount Pleasant, Con Ed reported.
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Workers were scrambling to clear downed trees, which knocked out overhead power lines after a violent nor'easter packed with high winds swept through the region Friday and into Saturday, the largest storm to hit the region since Hurricane Sandy.
Putnam County was hard hit with more than 25,000 NYSEG customers still without power Sunday morning and 203Central Hudson Gas & Electric customers, as of Sunday evening.
Only 954 customers in Rockland County remain without power, according to Orange and Rockland Utilities.
On Sunday, Con Ed said it expectedto have power for the majority of its customers restored by Monday and 90 percent by Tuesday night. The utility said it had already restored power to 48,000 customers in Westchester while dealing with hundreds of streets blocked by debris and fallen trees.
NYSEG officials said they expected to restore power to some 90 percent of their customers by Monday night.
Central Hudson estimated its Putnam County customers would be restored Sunday.
Orange and Rockland officials said they expected to restore power to a majority of affected customers by Sunday at midnight.
Check outage status:
- Con Edison Storm Center
- NYSEG Outage Central
- Orange & Rockland Storm Center
- Central Hudson Storm Center
At the height of the storm, 360,000 New Yorkers were without power, according to numbers provided by the state. As of Sunday afternoon, there are about 182,000 customers still out.
Of that number, more than three-quarters are in Dutchess, Putnam, Sullivan and Westchester counties, which is where Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency on Sunday afternoon.
Cuomo, in a statement, called it "an all-hands-on-deck situation" and said "the people of the Hudson Valley should know that New York state is doing everything we can to restore power and help them recover as quickly as possible."
Besides help from the New York National Guard, crews from the state Department of Transportation have also been dispatched to assist with cleanup, debris removal and to support utility restoration work, according to the governor.
'We're freezing'
In Mount Vernon, more than 4,000 customers have been without power sincearound noon Friday.
Among them was Maire Deiana, who lives in a fifth-floor walk-up on East Birch Street.
“We’re freezing,” Deiana said Sunday.
She’s tried to keep herself warm with blankets and layers upon layers of clothing while her husband makes regular trips to a nearby restaurant for hot soup. All the while, she’s contending with the flu.
“Our doctor had to come to the house,” Deiana said. “He walked all the way here. I grew up in Ireland so I’m used to doctors coming to the house, but not here.”
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More than a dozen roads remain closed in the town of Greenburgh, prompting the superintendent of Valhalla’s schools to cancel school Monday.
“Although the capable crews will make a lot of progress today, I do not want our children, families, buses or staff in dangerous conditions,” Superintendent Karen Geelan said in a letter sent out Sunday morning.
In the town of Mount Pleasant, some 80 trees and power lines were down and Town Hall was being used as a warming house.
The pace of recovery was expected to pick up Sunday as weather improves. Priority was given to hospitals, emergency-response stations and municipal pumping stations, Con Ed said.
Roughly half of the 124,000 customers in Westchester and New York City affected by the nor'easter known as Rileyhave had their power restored, the company said.
'Only answer is more crews'
Some government officials weren't pleased with the utilities' efforts.
County Executive George Latimer criticized Con Ed and NYSEG for not communicating more with those affected by the outages.Latimer has sincedeclared a state of emergency in Westchester.
“For those out of power, no words suffice" Latimer said on Twitter. "The problem is widespread and the utilities have much to answer for. The only answer is more crews, working 24 hrs. That's what we've pressed for."
Others took to Facebook to issue warnings.
"Con Edison indicated that restoration of service would begin after remediation is complete, but that full restoration of service would take several days to complete in light of the breadth of issues throughout Westchester County," Pelham officials said on Facebook.
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano joined Latimer in blasting Con Ed's response.
“We haven’t seen much of a response from Con Ed as of yet,” spokeswoman Christina Gilmartin said Saturday.
Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Thomas, after announcing the city would be extending hours of operation for a local warming center early Sunday evening, said he was skeptical the target restoration time would be met.
He also said he has asked Con Ed for "immediate updates" should that time shift.
"The public has a right to know where things stand," Thomas said. "Bad news is better than fake news."
Con Ed has brought in some 360 workers from Canadaand Texas to help with recovery from the storm, which the company has ranked as the fifth most severe in its history, based on the number of customers affected.
According to figures provided by Cuomo's office:
There are a total of 4,910 in-house workers and contractors handling restoration efforts, a number that includes 424 from Con Ed, 300 from Central Hudson, 705 from PSEG, 300 from FEMA, 1,200 from National Grid, 290 from Orange & Rockland Utilities, 783 from NYSEG.
NYSEG officials said they expect to restore power to some 90 percent of their customers by Monday night. About 118,000 NYSEG customers across the state were impacted.
“We have made good progress with the restoration,” said NYSEG President Carl A. Taylor. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us to restore power to our remaining customers, and we will not lessen our efforts until we restore every last customer.”
Orange and Rockland, meanwhile, said power has been restored to all but 954 of its 112,046 Rockland customers since Friday.
