Day 3: 1,443 Customer Still Without Power: Con Ed Says the Lights Will Go On By End of Day Sunday August 9

(Updated 8/6) As of the morning of August 6, the Con Edison outage map shows that 1,443 out of 6,230 customers in the 10583 zip code are without power. The message from Scarsdale Village says, "ConEd Incident Command advises that the target for restoring service to the vast majority of customers is Sunday, August 09,  in Scarsdale; however, some outages in the region will continue into next week. Restorations continue hour-by-hour, daily. We are requesting more support.”

(From August 5) Here we go again. The power is out and Con Edison crews are no where to be found. As in previous storms, the utility is not staffed to restore power in a timely fashion. In fact, they are offering no timeline for restoration and say they are waiting for crews to arrive from other parts of the county.

As of 4 pm on Wednesday, there has been little progress in restoring power to Scarsdale. The outage map shows that 1,746 customers in Scarsdale remain without power – and that means no air conditioning, refrigeration and lights. With afternoon temperatures reaching 89 degrees, it makes for a very frustrating situation, especially since many are working, or should we say, trying to work from home.

At 12:30 pm today, Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner reported on a call municipal leaders had with Con Edison this morning and the news was not good. He said, “Municipal officials are angry,” and “ Con Ed is unprepared. They have not provided an estimated dates or times when power will be restored.

The utility said that 124,000 people in Westchester were out of power yesterday, and as of the morning of August 5, 94,000 remain dark.. Con Ed has 220 line personnel working and they are dealing with public safety and road closures.

Feiner reports that the utility was “short staffed yesterday and they are waiting for more personnel to come later today to help out. They expect to ask for crews to be sent in from around the country. Crews are working to assess damage and restore power after the storm caused widespread damage. They expect to prioritize 143 critical customers - nursing homes and hospitals for restoration. Over 400 roads have been closed.”

He said that this was the second largest outage since Hurricane Irene in 2011.

Feiner said that “Most officials were very upset with the news. As one official said "here we go again. Every time there is a storm we hear the same thing--crews are on the way. Why weren't resources put in place in advance of this outage?"

At 4:45 pm, Scarsdale Village Manager Steve Pappalardo echoed some of Feiner’s comments. He said, “During Con Ed’s regional emergency operations phone conference today, they advised that a system-wide restoration target would be announced late this afternoon. As of now, that target has not been released. We will update the community when we know more. In the interim, ConEd related that there are presently 28 “Cut and Clear” crews operating within their service territory, and for 230 Line Personnel, which restore electric service. ConEd has activated 156 mutual-aid personnel, and expects an additional 100 by this evening. Additionally they are presently negotiating fly-in support from other utilities nationally.

There are currently four Con Ed crews working in Scarsdale with reopening roadways currently closed due to downed electrical wires and debris, our priority. These include the arterial and collector roads of Route 125-Weaver Street, Palmer Road and Heathcote Road. Village personnel assist ConEd with priority identification and tree clearing and clean-up.”

What the utility is offering is free ice to those without power at the Cross County Shopping Center at 8000 Mall Walk in Yonkers. However, that will be little consolation to those who are now going to spend a second night in the dark.