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O&R Restoring Power to Over 15,000 Customers Knocked Out by Storm

  • Orange and Rockland Media Relations

  • Pearl River – April 13, 2020 -- 01:30 PM

O&R crews are making repairs at approximately 300 locations for more than 15,000 customers whose power was knocked out by today’s high winds and heavy rains.

Power has already been restored to about 10,000 customers whose electric service had been interrupted by the storm at one time or another since midnight. A total of 25,000 O&R customers has experienced outages thus far from the storm.

 

O&R personnel have been instructed to practice social distancing with each other and members of the public when responding to emergency calls in an attempt to keep everyone safe from the coronavirus. O&R is following the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines during the health emergency.

 

For safety’s sake, don’t touch or approach any downed wire. Assume the downed wire is energized and dangerous. Do not try to move them or touch them with any object. Be mindful that downed wires can be hidden from view by tree limbs, leaves or standing water. 

Here are the customer outage numbers as of 1:00 p.m. today.

NEW YORK

  • Rockland: 8,151 total customers affected. Top three communities are: 4,986 in Clarkstown, 1,269 Orangetown, Spring Valley 858. 
  • Orange: 6,800 total customers affected. Top three communities are: 2,890 in Woodbury, 1,972 in Warwick Village and 1,119 in Warwick Town.
  • Sullivan: 54 total customers affected. Top communities are: 2 in Forestburgh and 52 in Lumberland. 

NEW JERSEY

  • Bergen: 823 customers affected. Top communities are: 385 in Closter, 116 in Saddle River and 85 in Ramsey.
  • Passaic:129 total customers affected. Top communities are: 123in West Milford and 6 in Ringwood.
  • Sussex: 20 outages

Expect today’s storm system’s steady rain showers and southerly winds to intensify across the area. Increasing winds, with possible gusts to 50 m.p.h. and moderate to heavy rainfall and thunderstorms, also are due today. Also, severe thunderstorms are possible, with the best chance of those storms occurring between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. today.

O&R company and contractor overhead line crews and tree removal experts are engaged in a high-volume outage response to the storm. Damage assessment, site safety, customer service operations and the wide array of O&R teams that support those functions also are responding. O&R is seeking an additional 50 overhead line technicians from its mutual aid utility partners to supplement the recovery effort. All personnel working on this emergency response will remain focused on maintaining safe, reliable service while protecting their families, customers and themselves.

 

The following video describes the typical storm repair and power restoration process:

There are several ways customers can report outages and check service restoration status:

  • Go to the O&R website from any computer or web-enabled mobile device;
  • Use the O&R mobile app from your iPhone, iPad or Android device;
  • Text “OUT” to 69678 (myORU); or
  • Call Customer Assistance at 1-877-434-4100

For more information, visit O&R’s Storm Center at www.oru.com.

 

To help its customers prepare to weather a storm, O&R offers these tips:

  • For safety’s sake, don’t touch or approach any downed wire. Assume it is energized and dangerous. Call O&R immediately toll-free 1-877-434-4100. Depending on the situation, you may also want to call your local police to divert traffic until an O&R crew arrives.
  • Maintain a distance of at least 50 feet from downed wires and anything they are in contact with including puddles of water and fences. Supervise your children so that they are not in the vicinity and keep pets on a leash or otherwise secure.
  • If a fallen wire is draped over a car, do not approach the car and make rescue attempts. Remain a safe distance away and try to keep the occupant of the vehicle calm. If possible, emergency personnel should handle the situation.
  • Pole-top transformers — those small grey-colored metal drums attached to the wires at the tops of most utility poles — also should be avoided when they have been knocked to the ground.
  • Portable generators pose a serious hazard if used improperly. They should be used and installed according to the manufacturer’s instructions. A wrong connection could feed electricity back through the lines and endanger our repair crews. Never plug a generator into a wall unit, use it indoors or set it up outdoors near open home windows or air-handling vents.
  • Have emergency equipment within reach — portable radio, flashlights, spare batteries, first aid kit, cell phone and important medications. Keep O&R’s toll-free number 1-877-434-4100 near the phone to report power outages.
  • Remember: if the base station of your cordless phone plugs into the wall, your phone will be unusable during a power outage.

Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies. O&R is a regulated utility that provides electric service to approximately 300,000 customers in southeastern New York State (where its franchise name is Orange & Rockland) and northern New Jersey (where it’s Rockland Electric Company), and natural gas service to approximately 130,000 customers in New York.

O&R serves the following communities in New York: Airmont, Bloomingburg, Blooming Grove, Chester Town, Chester Village, Chestnut Ridge, Clarkstown, Crawford, Deerpark, Florida, Forestburgh, Goshen Town, Goshen Village, Grand View, Greenwood Lake, Greenville, Harriman, Haverstraw Town, Haverstraw Village, Highland Falls, Highlands, Hillburn, Kaser, Kiryas Joel, Lumberland, Mamakating, Middletown, Minisink, Monroe Town, Monroe Village, Montebello, Mount Hope, New Hempstead, New Square, Nyack, Orangetown, Otisville, Palm Tree, Piermont, Pomona, Port Jervis, Ramapo, Sloatsburg, South Blooming Grove, South Nyack, Spring Valley, Stony Point, Suffern, Tuxedo Town, Tuxedo Park, Unionville, Upper Nyack, Wesley Hills, Wallkill, Warwick Town, Warwick Village, Washingtonville, Wawayanda, West Haverstraw, Woodbury, Woodbury Village, Wurtsboro.

O&R, as Rockland Electric Company, serves the following communities in New Jersey: Allendale, Alpine, Closter, Cresskill, Demarest, Franklin Lakes, Harrington Park, Mahwah, Haworth (part), Montague, Montvale, Northvale, Norwood, Oakland, Old Tappan (part), Ramsey, Ringwood, Rivervale (part), Rockleigh, Saddle River (part), Upper Saddle River, Wantage (part), Vernon (part), West Milford (part), Wyckoff (part).