There are numerous power outages in Genesee County following last night's heavy winds that blew through the area.
In the City of Batavia, there are a dozen separate outages with the two largest affecting more than 2,000 National Grid customers. One is centered around the intersection of Main and Oak and the other runs north to south along State Street.
There's also an outage that starts in the city along Pearl Street and stretches south into the Town of Batavia and affects 739 customers.
Crews have been assigned to those three outages but there is no ETA for power restoration.
Other outages:
- East Pembroke, outages affection 71 and 18 customers, crews assigned, no ETA.
- Indian Falls, 199 customers, crew assigned, no ETA.
- Tonawanda Indian Reservation, 105 customers, crew assigned, no ETA.
- Alabama, two outages 108 customers and 49 customers, crews assigned to both, no ETA.
- The northern part of the Town of Elba, 29 customers, no crew assigned, no ETA.
- The Town and Village of Elba, 329 customers, crew assigned, no ETA
- The Town of Batavia, west of Lewiston Road, north of the Thruway, 137 customers crew assigned, no ETA. There is a smaller outage to the northwest, 15 customers, no crew assigned, no ETA.
- There are overlapping outages in Byron, South Byron, Stafford, Bergen, Le Roy Town of Batavia, that affect 96 customers (no crew assigned), 816 (crew assigned), 105 (unassigned), 130 (unassigned), 59 (unassigned), and 72 (unassigned).
Statement from National Grid:
A National Grid field force of more than 3,300 workers is active across upstate New York removing downed wires, trees, tree limbs, broken poles and other hazards, while focusing on public safety and service restoration after a sustained, powerful windstorm hovered over the region Saturday through early this morning. The storm, which included heavy rain and wind gusts of more than 80 mph in some areas, has caused widespread and significant damage across the company’s 25,000-square-mile service area.
Crews have been working around the clock and, as of 10 a.m., have restored power to nearly 148,000 of the more than 215,000 customers impacted by the storm. Hardest hit were areas along the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, including Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Monroe, Oswego, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties.
In preparation for the storm, the company activated its comprehensive emergency response plan, including securing additional resources and pre-staging crews and materials in areas forecasted to be most severely impacted. Additional crews from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana and Ontario are arriving today to support the restoration efforts.
“This was an extremely destructive storm,” said Matt Barnett, National Grid’s Vice President of New York Electric Operations. “We continue to prioritize public safety as we clean up the widespread damage that includes uprooted trees and downed power lines,” he said.
Barnett noted that cleanup, reconstruction and restoration will be labor-intensive and time-consuming, with some outages in the hardest-hit areas of western, central, and northern New York potentially extending beyond 48 hours. “In addition to our critical public safety activities, we are assessing the damage to our system and equipment in order to provide estimated restoration times.”
National Grid continues to work closely with local officials to coordinate restoration efforts. Customers are reminded to remain aware of potential safety hazards such as damaged trees, particularly broken limbs that haven’t yet fallen to the ground. As always, all downed wires should be considered live and dangerous. All downed wires should immediately be reported to National Grid at 1-800-867-5222 or by calling 911.
Photo: Tree down in Centennial Park submitted by Linda LaPorte
