OSWEGO COUNTY, NY – National Grid is bringing in extra crews from outside of Central New York this morning in an effort to restore power for those who are still without power from the storm that blew through the area Monday.
Restoration efforts were strong through the day Monday, however. Working around the clock, company employees managed to bring the number of customers without power down from approximately 100,000 customers to approximately 20,000.
Heavy efforts in Onondaga County have brought the number of customers in the dark from approximately 40,000 customers Monday to approximately 3,000 customers this morning.
Topping the list on the company’s outage tracker, approximately 6,000 Oswego County power customers remain in the dark today; the highest in the state. Just short of 5,000 customers, Oneida County held the second largest number of customers still affected by the storm.
“We have a lot of crews coming in today,†National Grid spokesperson Patrick Stella said this morning. “We will have approximately 300 crews in Central New York. That is about 1,800 people who will be working to restore power.â€ÂÂ
Stella said the company is tapping all of its resources to clean things up today.
“Hopefully, we will see the majority of customers without power back up by the end of the day today,†Stella said.
Stella noted that the company focuses first on lines that will restore the most amount of customers, as quickly as possible.
“We go from there,†he said.
Under the company’s restoration process during a major outage, crews begin restoring service as quickly as possible once safe conditions are established, according to the National Grid Web site.
“Under our priority system, repair crews typically first address problems with transmission lines and substations that serve large numbers of customers, and restore critical customers such as hospitals and public safety facilities,†the site reads.
“While those problems are being resolved, crews also begin to work on substations and primary lines that serve many customers. Crews then target secondary lines that serve local neighborhoods. Lines and transformers within neighborhoods and the wires that connect them to homes and businesses come nextâ€â€Âstarting with areas that involve the most customers.â€ÂÂ
Stella said that a lot of the efforts depend on how the network is laid out, as well.
“That’s why it happens the way it does and it is different every time,†he said. “They look at where the damage is and how it works best.â€ÂÂ
Anyone who sees downed power lines should assume they are live. Damage can be reported to National Grid at 1-800-867-5222.
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