Power outages across New York

By Callan Gray (NCC News)

December 1, 2010 6:40 p.m.

Outages across New York State

Many in Onondaga County woke up in cold, dark houses Wednesday morning as strong winds caused power outages across the county. National Grid reported at noon there remained 544 outages among the company’s customers in the county and 9,000 across New York State. When the day started there were over 10,000 outages.

National Grid spokesperson Patrick Stella said the highest concentrations of outages were in the Mohawk Valley and Utica and Rome areas. But the company had seen a scattering of darkness in the Syracuse area. National Grid continued to respond to calls from customers throughout the morning, said Stella.

“We’re making a little bit of progress, and of course we are restoring customers,” Stella said. “And we’ll pick up some new outages after that so the numbers have gone up and down steadily throughout the morning."

Heavy rains turned into snow by around 3:00 p.m. in Syracuse. But Stella said the snow should not be a problem for the power company.

“The only thing snow really brings for us and our equipment would be wet heavy snow that could weigh down lines or weigh down trees that would come down and hit our lines,” he described. “If its not that kind of snow it doesn’t tend to have a huge affect on our equipment.”

Stella said the company trains its employees well to prepare for those snowfalls, which are common in Upstate New York.

“We prepare for emergencies all year round,” Stella said. “We do drills all year round and we certainty can call in crews from other areas if needed if we do see an influx of outages.”

More bad weather on the way

Wednesday evening provided a different set of weather problems for the county as the National Weather Service issued a flood watch until 1 a.m. Thursday morning. The heavy rain, sleet and snow were the result of a cool front that brought temperatures in the region down from 60 degrees to the low 30s.

On its website, New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) offers these tips to customers out of power:

· Keep flashlights and fresh batteries handy

· Have at least one telephone not dependent on electricity

· Keep non-perishable food and water on hand

· Make sure your cell phone battery is fully charged

· Call your neighbors to see if their power is off; you may have just blown a fuse