Hurricane Sandy: Thousands Remain Without Power in Port Chester

The recovery from Hurricane Sandy continues to feel slow for thousands of Port Chester residents who remain without power tonight.

Con Edison's latest tally reports that 7,734 of its 10,254 customers in Port Chester are still without electrical service. In Rye Brook, the numbers are just as bad — 2,938 out of 3,720 customers are in the dark.

Throughout Westchester, about 166,173 Westchester County Con Edison customers out of 348,198 remain without power and the utility says it may be days more before the lights come on.

John Miksad, senior vice president of electric operations for Con Edison, said the company is distributing its resources "to get the most bang for the buck" in the recovery effort.

In the county, "I would think it would be the last customers in a week or better kind of range," he stated in response to a reporter's inquiry about restoration times.

But he added later that a 10-day wait time could be "in the ball park" for area residents.

"We are talking about another storm of the century a year after the last storm of the century," Miksad reiterated.

In Port Chester, village police said the downtown remained quiet Wednesday with most of the area remaining without power.

During the storm, police said eight low-lying areas in Port Chester saw flooding, including water that got into basements.

The village counted at least 40 trees that fell during the hurricane, with at least 31 downed utility wires. Several traffic lights were knocked out by the storm.

Port Chester resident Johnna Roca said she and her family had a terrifying moment when a towering tree in their front yard came crashing down on their Sylvan Road home. Despite the size of the tree, she said damage to her home was limited.

When the storm was over, Roca said described the assistance her family recieved from Port Chester as "amazing."  She said the village hired Gianna Land Management to work on removing the tree and its massive root structure.

After the storm, Port Chester Village Board of Trustees member Bart Didden said parts of the village looked like war zones with downed trees.

"Port Chester is doing better than most all because of our volunteer firemen and highly dedicated village employees, PD, FD, DPW and the management staff," Didden said.

While the storm delayed garbabe pick up and has postponed this week's trash pick up, he said garbage pick up was due to be back to normal by Thursday. Didden said sanitation workers were busy picking up all tree limbs that can be removed by hand throughout the village and street sweepers were out today to keep leaves away from storm drains as best as possible.

Didden said that after the storm pump out operations on North Main Street were done to make it possibe for Con Ed to eventually restore power for downtown businesses.

During the start of the storm, around 8:30 p.m., into Monday, police said there were nearly 120 calls to 911 in Port Chester to report a variety of emergencies. Normally during that time, police say they might get around 25 calls.

Port Chester Village Manager Christopher Steers declared an emergency in Port Chester because of the storm and ordered evacuations of low-lying neighborhoods and the Red Cross opened an emergency shelter at Port Chester High School. The evacuation order has been lifted and the Red Cross said this evening that the local emergency shelter has closed.

A shelter in Mamaroneck has also closed, but shelters in New Rochelle, Yonkers and Mount Kisco remain open. Red Cross disaster assessment teams have also begun working throughout Westchester to dertermine the next steps necessary to assist victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Port Chester schools have been closed all week and will also be closed on Thursday. The school district has not yet issued a decision about Friday.

The storm and its aftermath led Port Chester Police to ask village residents not to let children go out on the streets for the traditional Halloween Trick-or-Treat activities. Police say it's just too dangerous with the continuing power outages, downed trees and fallen utiity lines.

The storm led Port Chester to cancel its Halloween in the Park Party at Lyon Park. However, Port Chester's Recreation Department is hosting a children's Halloween Party on Friday at the Port Chester Senior Center. The free event is free and open to children of all ages and will include a Halloween costume parade.