The cost to restore electric service to approximately 80,000 Central Hudson customers who were impacted by Tropical Storm Floyd totaled approximately $8 million. Customers’ bills will not rise as a result of the storm due to Central Hudson’s commitment to freeze prices, said the utility’s President and Chief Operating Officer Carl E. Meyer last week.
Tropical Storm Floyd struck the Mid-Hudson region late on Thursday, September 16th, causing more damage in Central Hudson’s service territory than any other region of New York State. Damage was so severe that several counties (Albany, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, and Ulster) were declared federal disaster areas. Nearly one in three Central Hudson customers lost their electricity due to the heavy rains and high winds of the down-graded hurricane, which uprooted hundreds of trees and tore limbs from countless others. Central Hudson employees mobilized immediately to respond to the devastation - and working around the clock with assistance of crews from Canada, Long Island, western New York, Pennsylvania, and other locations - restored service to more than 74,000 customers within three days.
"It was our goal to restore service to the bulk of our customers by Sunday evening. Despite serious and widespread damage to our facilities - much of it off the road - we were able to exceed that goal, reconnecting approximately 95 percent of affected customers by that time," Meyer noted. More than 300 field crews continued to work through the day Tuesday and into early Wednesday morning as service to the final customers in hard-hit areas was restored by individual neighborhood repairs. In addition, during the day on Wednesday it was necessary to restore service to additional customers who lost power due to high winds from a second windstorm which hit the area earlier that day. In all, nearly 1,400 Central Hudson employees and contractors worked through the restoration effort to get the power back on for local residents.
Central Hudson has already begun a self-assessment to identify ways to improve performance during the region’s next natural disaster. The critique will address comments from customers, emergency responders, civic leaders, and field crews from assisting utilities, as well as Central Hudson’s own employees. Similar assessments conducted in the aftermath of the October snowstorm of 1987 and the April snowstorm of 1997 helped improve Central Hudson’s performance during Tropical Storm Floyd.
"We are grateful to the civic leaders and the people from law enforcement, firefighting, highway, public works, emergency response, human services and other agencies who worked hand-in-hand with us in the restoration effort," said Meyer. "We also appreciate the patience, support and understanding of our customers who lost service or were inconvenienced as a result of the storm’s damage.
"We will continue to strive to improve our performance - and we are committed to finding still more ways to do a better job during future storms and other emergencies. We will also continue to invest prudently in the infrastructure and maintenance of our electric system in order to minimize the potential for any storm-related impacts in the future," he added.
