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Thousands still without power in Warren County as more bad weather looms

Thousands of Warren County residents continued to suffer in the cold Monday as they endured a fourth day without electricity because of Friday’s storm.

Monday’s snow compounded utility problems in parts of the region, bringing down more branches and trees as well as utility lines. Nearly 6,300 local National Grid customers remained out of electricity as of early afternoon Monday, but the outages dropped to about 3,300 as of late afternoon.

“We’ve still got a lot of problems here,” said Horicon Supervisor Matt Simpson, whose town had nearly 1,300 homes and businesses without power Monday afternoon.

Patrick Stella, a spokesman for National Grid, said the company has had 1,200 line workers in the region since Friday.

The number of outages continued to fall to dozens in Warren County by 9 p.m. Monday according to the National Grid outage website with restoration times late Monday into the early hours of Tuesday morning.

He said forecasts did not call for as much ice as was gotten in some areas, but on Friday when it appeared that the storm was going to hit the region harder than anticipated, National Grid crews from around the state and mutual aid from other states and Canada were summoned. The majority arrived late Friday, Stella explained.

“They got a lot of assets here pretty quickly,” Warren County Emergency Services Coordinator Brian LaFlure said.

In all, 166,000 National Grid customers in upstate New York lost power by early Saturday, Saratoga and Warren counties hit the hardest.

Stella said more outages occurred Monday as several inches of snow accumulated on branches that were still weighed down by last week’s precipitation. With more snow predicted later in the week, utility crews will continue to stage locally for additional possible outages, he explained.

“We’re still on alert. We haven’t declared victory yet,” Stella said.

A crew from central New Jersey was working along Route 9N in Lake Luzerne on Monday, residents of nearby homes standing outside and watching as they waited for the power to come back on.

One woman, who would not give her name, said she had been staying at her adult son’s home in Glens Falls since Friday.

In addition to broken lines and utility poles, Bolton Supervisor Ron Conover said an electrical substation problem in Bolton kept the lights off for longer than anticipated.

Some have questioned the absence of state assistance during the outage, but LaFlure said his office had frequent communication with state officials, who offered assistance if needed. But in light of limited use of warming stations and shelters that were opened by fire departments and towns, LaFlure said it was determined state assets were not needed.

“They have been reaching out since Friday night, asking if we needed anything,” LaFlure said.

In years past, the state Emergency Management Office/Homeland Security would bring equipment and personnel without being asked, but the current policies allow the agencies to monitor local emergency radio channels and communicate with local staff before determining whether to send aid.

“They would send assets we didn’t ask for,” he said.

Outages also continued to occur during Saturday and Sunday as snow-and-ice laden branches came down.

“We were still getting calls Sunday morning about trees and lines coming down,” said Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty, who is a Warrensburg firefighter.

Geraghty said no one showed up at the Warrensburg Fire Department’s warming station Saturday. Bolton Supervisor Ron Conover said the Bolton Fire Department’s warming station had just a couple of people stop in.

Most are just used to sporadic outages and being ready for bad winter weather, Conover said.

“We’ve been out touching base with people in their homes who might be vulnerable,” Conover said. “They are very resilient people.”

Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo said his office brought in extra personnel Friday to check on residents in areas that lost power, and the county has a registry of people with “special needs” who patrols regularly checked on as well.

“We checked on every one of them to make sure they were OK,” he said.

LaFlure’s office was able to provide portable electrical generators to the town of Johnsburg, and firefighters were able to take them to homes to fire up furnaces and appliances to warm homes.

As the storm damage is repaired, more stories have emerged from people who narrowly survived falling trees. A State Police patrol car was hit by a falling tree on the side of the Northway in Moreau on Friday as the trooper stopped to help at an accident scene. No one was hurt.

A Thurman Highway Department truck had a large tree and utility wires fall on it, while a Lake Luzerne man was hurt when a tree fell on his vehicle. There were numerous other reports of trees falling on cars as they drove on area roads.

Warren County Public Works Superintendent Kevin Hajos said two county roads remained limited to local traffic as of Monday, Golf Course Road in Warrensburg and Friends Lake Road in Chester, because of downed trees.

Tree crews working with line crews remove trees to let line repairs occur, but getting the debris off the road and shoulder is the job of state, county and local highway crews.

“There are some places where it looks like a war zone,” Hajos said. “We will be busy for the next couple of weeks clearing tree debris.”

Conover and Simpson said they were seeing plumbing trucks around town Monday as residents who got power back realized their water pipes had frozen, with some bursting. Officials recommend extreme care in thawing pipes.

Geraghty questioned whether more tree trimming around utility lines could lessen utility problems during storms. He said public works crews, on the local and state level, have noticed over the years that trees are infringing on wires more closely than they had been. More trimming would also help keep roads from becoming as icy, and require less road salt.

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