O&R Restoring Service to About 1,300 Customers Who Lost Power Today in Severe Windstorm

Orange and Rockland Utilities (O&R) crews are repairing storm damage and restoring electric service to the remaining 1,300 customers who lost power last night and this morning when heavy winds and rain pummeled the region. O&R estimates that power should be restored to 95% of the customers affected by this weather event by 3:00 p.m. Approximately 17,860 O&R customers’ electric service was impacted throughout the duration of the rain and windstorm.

O&R company and contractor overhead line crews and tree removal experts, customer service operators and the rest of the members of the O&R emergency response team mobilized at 6:00 p.m. yesterday evening.

For safety’s sake, O&R warns the public not to touch or approach any downed wire. Assume the wire is energized and dangerous. Call O&R immediately toll-free 1-877-434-4100. Depending on the situation, you may also consider calling your local police to divert traffic from the downed wire’s location until an O&R crew arrives.

How to Report an Outage

If you experience a power outage, don’t assume that O&R automatically knows about it. You can report it and check to see when your lights will be back on through:

• Report an Electric Service Problem from any computer or web-based mobile device.
• O&R mobile app from your iPhone, iPad or Android device — download via Apple Store or Google Play.
• Text messaging by texting “OUT” to 69678 (myORU) or
• Call 1-877-434-4100.

For the latest information about power outages, please view O&R’s Outage Map.

Restoring Service

Once the weather clears enough to safely assess damage and begin electric service restoration, O&R crews will give priority to clearing downed wires blocking roads and making repairs to critical and emergency facilities (police and fire stations, and hospitals, for example) and to those locations where the repair will provide power to the largest number of customers as quickly as possible. Then, crews will restore smaller outages and individual customers’ outages.