Maserjian said repair crews — 80 linemen from Topeka, Kansas have joined the Central Hudson force and 15 more are on their way from Tulsa, Oklahoma — are now entering the part of the restoration process where the most difficult jobs have to be tackled. “The effort will be increasing, but the daily results may slow up a bit, simply because of what we’re contending with. Now we’re working along the individual distribution lines … as we go out along the distribution lines, we’re encountering fallen trees, blocked roads, in some cases washed-out roads, downed poles, downed lines. So that work is more tedious and takes a bit longer to do. … But we do expect to make progress all along the week.”
Maserjian added that restoring power to the truly remote and most devastated areas might well take longer than a week; he promised the utility would make contact with those residents personally to keep them in the loop.
“You should know that mutual assistance crews from other areas are very hard to come by, simply because of the huge area Hurricane Irene has affected,” Maserjian said. “The resources are just stretched.”
The utility, Maserjian said, would continue to give out bottled water and as much dry ice as it could get its hands on, but a dry ice shipment it expected didn’t arrive on Wednesday, as dry ice is as hard to come by as spare line crews. “We think we’ve found another source and we think we’ll have a good supply [Thursday],” Maserjian said. Both the Rosendale Rec Center on Route 32 and the Grace Community Church on Seremma Court in Lake Katrine were used this week as water and dry ice distribution points; both were mobbed with people out of power and in need.
In a response to a reporter’s question as to how people on one side of a street could have power and the other side still be in the dark, Maserjian cited the hidden complexities of the power grid and the varieties of damage the storm inflicted. “Sometimes homes on the same street might be fed off a different circuit, so that means that … maybe there’s damage on that circuit which still needs to be addressed,” he said. “It could be down the line, and not visible to those residents.”
Maserjian said it’s also possible that service lines to individual homes may be damaged. If people without power see everybody surrounding them has power, they should call the utility, he said, so it can sort out the problem.
