Press release:
National Grid’s upstate New York field force of more than 3,400 workers has restored power to nearly 180,000 of the approximately 215,000 customers impacted by the powerful windstorm that swept across the region Saturday through this morning. The storm, which included gusts of up to 80 mph in some areas, brought significant and widespread damage to the company’s electricity delivery system, leaving behind at least 225 broken utility poles, 100 damaged transformers, and hundreds of toppled trees, tree limbs, and downed wires.
Among the hardest hit were areas along the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, including Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Monroe, Oswego, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties.
Crews have been working around the clock since the storm began to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.The company is providing the following general estimated times of restoration for customers who remain without service. Power is being consistently restored to customers in these regions and ETRs are updated on the company’s Outage Central site. Additionally, customers can check on the power restoration estimate for their specific address by logging into our Report or Check an Outage page.
- Eastern New York: Restoration will be complete tonight by 11:30 p.m.
- Central New York, including the North Country: Restoration will be complete for 90% of the affected customers by 6 p.m. Monday.
- Western New York: Restoration will be complete for 90% of affected customers by 11:30 p.m. Monday. The company’s extensive resources, which include support from National Grid New England crews as well as crews from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, and Ontario, will remain in the region until the last outage is repaired.
“This storm has been extremely damaging to our electricity system,” said Matt Barnett, Vice President of New York Electric Operations. “We understand the inconvenience of being without power and our crews will continue to be out there in full force bringing service back to customers as quickly as possible.”