PURCHASE, N.Y. (PIX11) — The combination of high winds on Friday, combined with the rains of the last week, along with the rain that’s in the forecast has made for some potentially hazardous conditions in areas north of the city.
It’s why Con Edison, the local utility, created a massive deployment of utility trucks, personnel, and equipment based out of a lot at SUNY Purchase.
It was in anticipation of a need to restore power to customers affected by the remnants of the hurricane.
Deanne Ostrowski supervised the emergency reaction force assembled in the northern suburban location. She explained why it was needed.
“The ground is really saturated, as far as the amount of rain we have had,” she said in an interview in the middle of the emergency deployment lot, “and the wind, as you can see, is blowing.”
“When the wind hits those leaves,” she continued, “there’s a good chance that trees may come down and impact our overhead systems.”
Anticipating that impact, the deployment location she’d set up had some 600 technicians who’d been brought in from other utilities from as far away as Indiana and North Carolina. In addition, there were hundreds of dumpster-sized crates in the staging area of the emergency deployment encampment, filled with electrical equipment for crews to use.
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Another way in which preparations for the worst were underway was visible in a flood-prone area of Greenburgh.
There, organizers and volunteers with the Fuller Center for Housing were distributing sandbags to anyone who said they needed them.
Simon Campana and Marco Gomez were among Greenburgh residents who’d requested sandbags. Their home on Florence Avenue, which is across the street from a creek, flooded last year when a heavy rain swelled the creek and inundated the whole neighborhood.
“Water [was] coming quickly,” Campana said, to which Gomez added, “Last time, water came inside” their home. “Two feet — inside.”
They said that the creek needed to be cleared of debris, and without it, the danger of it overflowing into their home was significant.
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They, and the non-profit that supplies the sandbags, are hoping that the remnants of Debby do not come close to the type of flooding they’ve seen in the past.
“Every inch of water you save from coming in your house,” said Jim Killoran, the executive director of the Fuller Center, “could be sixteen- to twenty-thousand dollars of rehabbing and paying a contractor to do that.”
He said that the need to be prepared for the worst is ongoing, especially during hurricane season, which runs through November 30.
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