NYSEG: Power Restored to Majority of Yorktown Customers

The majority of Yorktown customers have had their power restored after the rare October snow, according to a New York State Electric & Gas official.

NYSEG spokesman Jim Salmon said most people had their power back by midnight Wednesday, and the final few would have it restored by Friday night. 

Of 32,470 NYSEG customers in Westchester, roughly 3,971 are in the dark as of 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.  

According to reports from the company's online Outage Center, Yorktown had the highest number of affected customers in Westchester, with more than 2,000 customers without power Wednesday night. That number dropped to 252 by Thursday evening.

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.

Yorktown councilmen Jim Martorano and Nick Bianco have critcized NYSEG for a "poor response" to the storm and "lack of preparation and action." Supervisor Susan Siegel said she believes in working constructively with the utilities to make necessary improvements.

"On the positive side, NYSEG was very responsive in getting Beaveridge and Country House – two of our senior citizen communities, and top priorities – restored much quicker than during Hurricane Irene, and we’re thankful for that," she said. "On the negative side, just like with Irene, thousands of our residents are struggling to cope with multiple day outages, uncomfortably cold temperatures without heat, and loss of food supplies. While we can understand that freak storms like these can cause extensive damage to the power grid, there is still a lot of room for improvement in NYSEG’s restoration times and their ability to convey timely and accurate updates to municipalities and residents."

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.