O&R Crews Working Through the Night on Rockland, Orange Power Outages

PEARL RIVER, NY — O&R crews are working through the night and into Tuesday to repair damage and restore electric service to customers whose power was knocked out during today’s destructive windstorm.

Because of the increasingly severe winds raking the region and their resulting damage to the overhead electric system, O&R upgraded its mobilization status to Storm Alert at 2 p.m. today and deployed all available field crews to repair damage and restore service.

O&R crews and contractors began making repairs and restoring service at dawn Monday. About 19,000 customers have experienced outages at one time or another today.

As of 6:30 p.m. about 16,000 customers at about 300 locations had been restored to service and approximately 3,000 at about 150 locations were out. By 11 p.m. that number had been cut roughly in half.

Approximately 80 utility contractors from National Grid in Massachusetts and Con Edison Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island operations centers are supplementing the repair and restoration efforts of O&R crews and contractors.

For the most current numbers, visit O&R’s Outage Map at www.oru.com.

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

• Go to www.oru.com from any computer or web-enabled mobile device;
• Download the O&R Mobile app through the App Store or Google Play Store;
• Text “OUT” to 69678 (myORU); or
• Call Customer Assistance at 1-877-434-4100

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.
• 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.
• If you experience a power outage, don’t assume that O&R automatically knows about it or that someone else will report it. To be sure the outage is reported, please call O&R toll-free at 1-877-434-4100 to let O&R know what happened. The more information you can provide, the more O&R can help you.
• Remember: If the base station of your cordless phone plugs into the wall, your phone will be unusable during a power outage.

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