Con Ed Removing Rye Homeowners' Hazardous Trees

RYE, NY — The 2019 hurricane season began June. 1. And Con Edison officials are flashing back to the long, cold power outages from the severe back-to-back snow storms in March of 2018.

"With hurricane season underway, Con Edison is expanding its efforts to partner with Westchester homeowners in a pilot program to identify and remove damaged and diseased trees on their property that could threaten power lines during storms," officials of the utility company said Tuesday.

Some Rye homeowners are part of the project.

The impetus? Those two storms in March 2018 caused outages for more than 155,000 Westchester County Con Ed customers, many of them for many days. (Many Westchester residents in the northeastern corner of the county also suffered power outages — they were customers of NYSEG.)

The storms also resulted in the largest restoration effort in Con Ed's history after Superstorm Sandy, company officials said.

Con Ed crews and Westchester municipalities had to clear more than 700 roads blocked by downed trees and wires, and utility crews performed more than 7,000 rebuild and repair jobs to restore power.

In the hardest-hit areas, 77 percent of the surveyed damage was caused by privately owned trees or large tree limbs.

Afterward, Con Ed focused on the communities most affected by outages due to tree-related damage. They took a look along the power lines in Yorktown, Cortlandt, North Castle, Croton-on-Hudson, Armonk, Briarcliff Manor, Elmsford, Harrison, White Plains, Rye, and Mount Kisco.

More than 1,100 trees on private property were identified as threats.

Certified by arborists as presenting a potential hazard, they are on a list as part of a $2 million program to reduce power outages caused by trees and branches falling on overhead lines.

Con Ed offers to remove them free of charge. So far, more than 700 homeowners have given permission for the utility's licensed tree-service contractors to do the work.

“The response to this pilot program has been terrific. Together with our customers, we are helping to improve the reliability of service in the Westchester communities that have been most affected by power outages during severe storms,” said Tim Cawley, President of Con Edison, in a press release. “This program is a first-of-its-kind effort to help build awareness about the importance of identifying and removing trees that show greatest risk of falling.”

Con Edison is investing $100 million to make the overhead electric delivery system in Westchester more reliable and resistant to storm damage, company officials said.

“All of us here in Westchester know firsthand how devastating storms can be to our homes and our lives," Westchester County Executive George Latimer said. "While we value trees aesthetics – we must also be practical when it comes to taking prudent steps to prevent power outages. I thank Con Edison for expanding their tree removal program, and working with homeowners to prevent power outages.”

More than 500 of the trees identified as threats have already been removed.

“When Con Edison said it was going to take down the trees and take them off my property, I was very appreciative that they were doing this proactively and that it wasn’t going to cost me anything,” said Francesco Affrunti, a homeowner in Armonk. Affrunti said he hoped the program would mean real changes for the next power outage — maybe just two days instead of five.

Homeowners concerned about potentially hazardous trees or interested in best management practices for maintaining tree health may contact the Cornell Cooperative Extension atWestchester@cornell.edu or Cornell University’s Urban Horticulture Institute at nlb2@cornell.edu or visit the following websites:

• Arbor Day Foundation arborday.org
• International Society of Arboriculture isa-arbor.com

For additional information on Con Edison’s program, visit conEd.com/TreeTrimming.

SEE ALSO:

• NYSEG Power Restoration Estimates: Nor'easter Aftermath
• Power Outages: 128K+ Without Electricity After Latest Storm
• Power Restoration Continues As 2nd Snow Storm Arrives