WATERTOWN — The wait is still on for many in the north country without power, a spokesperson from National Grid said.
“I think it’s very likely that there are going to be customers without power into tomorrow,” Jared Paventi, strategic communications manager for National Grid, said Wednesday.
National Grid is estimating the tri-county region restoration time to be 11:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the outage website Wednesday night.
National Grid said that as of 6 p.m. Wednesday it had restored service to 34,000 of the 66,000 customers in Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence and Franklin counties affected by the storm. About 177,000 customers were affected across New York on Wednesday.
Restoration times depend on what repairs are needed in a given area.
“It’s tough to say, especially at this early point because we don’t know where the big time-consuming damage is,” Paventi said.
He said that once crews can pinpoint the damage, then they can clear the debris and start repairs.
The wind and rain caused damage to the electric transmission and distribution systems.
“The damage to our infrastructure was extensive, particularly in the most remote parts of our Northern New York service area,” Matt Barnett, vice president of New York Electric Operations for National Grid, said in a news release Wednesday evening. “Safely restoring service in these areas is time- and labor-intensive. We understand the inconvenience of being without power, and our crews are out in full force to restore service to our customers as quickly and safely as possible.”
Crews had to replace at least 60 utility poles, according to the release. The utility said it can take one crew with specialized equipment four to six hours to replace each pole. Forestry teams also had to cut back broken limbs and trunks so that crews could work.
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Crews from New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois and Kentucky are working in Northern New York.
“I want to extend my gratitude to the many police, fire, public works, municipal officials, and other volunteers who continue to support our customers and our communities during the post-storm recovery. I also want to thank our customers for their patience as our employees work to restore their service,” Jefferson County Sheriff Peter R. Barnett said in the news release.
National Grid crews that began work at 6 a.m. Wednesday were expected to be out until at least midnight, Paventi said.
“We may go to around-the-clock scheduling depending on what sort of progress we’re making today,” he said Wednesday.
Jefferson County is under a lake-effect snow warning until 1 a.m. Friday. The National Weather Service in Buffalo predicts there will 8 to 16 inches of snow in the most persistent lake snows.
“(The snowstorm) presents another hazard, presents another difficulty in our world, but at the same time our eyes are on making sure we get service restored as quickly and as safely as we can,” Paventi said.
Paventi said there were about 1,100 crews in the central region with “a number” of them in the north country.
They came in throughout the day on Tuesday and, when it was time to go Wednesday morning, they were ready.
National Grid had to wait until the worst of the storm was over until it could deploy crews.
“We can’t safely put buckets in the air when there’s 70 mph winds,” he said. “But before we can do repairs, we have to get out there and assess (damage). And you can’t put a damage assessment crew in the middle of a field at four in the morning because of light. So we made the determination that crews started rolling at six. We were out on the road to get out to these areas to start getting an idea of what sort of damage was out there … We can’t have someone climb a pole when there’s 70 mph winds ripping through downtown Watertown. It’s just unsafe. And we’re not going to risk the safety of our crews or the safety of the public.”
He said safety is “the most important thing they consider.”
Some crews may have been out on Tuesday night, but most of the work that was going to be done had to wait until wind subsided Wednesday morning, Paventi said.
“What you don’t want to have happen is a crew spend two or three hours making a repair, finishing the repair and then having the line break again,” he said.
Setting a pole could also be difficult because they would need to use a crane, which Paventi said they don’t want to be unstable.
“For the safety of our crews, safety of the public, and really just for the expediency we can get people back online, get service restored, especially in a wind event like this, we’re very likely going to wait until the worst of it is in the rear-view mirror,” he said.
There is no steadfast rule from National Grid for pulling crews off jobs when winds get to a certain mph. Paventi said they rely on the crews on the scene to tell them if it’s safe.
“If a crew feels a situation is unsafe for some reason, we trust their judgment. We’ll follow what the crew says if it’s a situation where they do not feel safe putting a bucket in the air because of wind speeds, we follow that because they’re the team that’s in the field,” he said. “We want every line mechanic, forestry technician and damage assessor that leaves in the morning to come home.”
The colors that people see on National Grid’s outage map indicate the number of people affected by a specific outage.
Green is the least amount of outages, followed by blue, purple, yellow and red with the most.
To stay safe, people without power should use flashlights instead of candles, and stay away from downed wires. Those who see a downed wire should call 911, Paventi said.
“If it’s in a street, if it’s in a roadway, don’t drive over it, call 911 and report it. There’s going to be a lot of them down and there’s no reason to get near them. Keep yourself away from them, keep your pets away from them because we don’t want to see any fatalities come because of people coming in contact with it,” he said.
National Grid is also urging customers to remain patient as they work to get power back online. Drivers should yield to National Grid crews and give them room to work.
Dry ice and bottled water were available from National Grid at the Watertown CitiBus garage, the Jefferson Community College Education Center in Lowville, and the Star Lake Fire Department in St. Lawrence County from 1 to 5 p.m.
