NYSEG: 90 Percent of Power to be Restored by Midnight Wednesday

The majority of Brewster and Southeast customers who are still without power four days after an October snowstorm should have electricity restored shortly, according to a New York State Electric & Gas official.

NYSEG spokesman Jim Salmon said most will have power back by midnight Wednesday, with the final few restored by Friday night. 

Of 37,950 NYSEG customers in Putnam, roughly 9,500 are in the dark. In Westchester, just over 12,000 are still without power.

According to reports from the company's online Outage Center, Brewster, Carmel, Mahopac and Punam Valley have the highest number of affected customers in Putnam. Across county lines in South Salem and Pound Ridge, 80 percent and 60 percent of customers, respectively, do not have power.

Some locals have been  specifically with the online outage map which indicates which streets have electricity and estimates when those without power will be restored. Residents have said restoration times have been inaccurate and have in some cases falsely indicated that power was restored.

There are a number of factors that could lead to errors on the outage map, including partly damaged circuits or problems with service lines leading from circuits to individual homes, Salmon said.

"A crew might finish work on a circuit and all signs point to it being on—then they let us know and we manually enter the restoration on the online map. But even if the circuit looks 'hot,' we may not know about an individual problem," he said. "The best thing to do is to call in the outage to ensure we have the information."

It's a common misconception that the power company has a big grid that indicates where all the outages are, he added.

"Until we are on a smart grid — and that's another story — we don't know until the outages are called in."

In some cases, the outage map may indicate the power is out but it's been restored. This is because radio communications may not be effective in some areas, and restorations are not reported to NYSEG headquarters until the end of the day when crews return with their paperwork.

If you haven't called in your power outage yet, call (800)-572-1131. To retrieve power restorations specific to your home, go directly into the “Report and electricity outage” button at this link: http://ebiz1.nyseg.com/cusweb/outagenotification.aspx. You can directly enter your account number or phone number there.