BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Many people were still in the dark Thursday, days after severe winds blew through Western New York on Tuesday.
7 News anchor Jeff Russo and senior reporter Eileen Buckley spent time in these communities on Thursday.
Neighbors without power in West Seneca
Russo met with West Seneca town supervisor Gary Dickson who says the ongoing power outages have left residents looking for answers.
"Now it's getting colder," said Dickson. "People's power is still out. It's been out for quite a while. It's very frustrating."
As of Thursday morning, Dickson said there were more than 180 customers in West Seneca still without power, with the majority of them in one specific neighborhood.
Russo visited Angela Crest Lane and found a damaged utility pole, believed to be the cause of the continued outages in the Fisher Court neighborhood.
"The utility companies are regulated by the state. We have good liaison with them, but that's just an information flow," said Dickson.
Community member Ernest Helinski approached Russo to voice his frustrations. He's lived in the neighborhood for close to 40 years and has been without power since Tuesday night.
"You people out there need to get your (expletive) together," Helinski said. "This is an emergency. I want someone to come down here and inspect this damn telephone pole and this electric pole. It can't cost that much money to fix."
Alexandria Whalen lives right across the street from the damaged pole.
"It's been teeter-tottering back and forth," Whalen said. "The wires were leaning on the tree in the backyard and because the wires were hanging on the tree, it created a fire that I noticed outside my window."
Scott Brawdy also lives in the neighborhood. Alexandria and Scott said they both called NYSEG on several occasions. The only update they received was that their power would be restored sometime before noon on Friday.
"Every time we have winds, we have to worry if we are going to lose power," said Brawdy.
Just as Russo was leaving, a crew arrived with a new pole.
"Looks like we are getting some results," said Brawdy. "So, that's fantastic."
Alexis Arnold of NYSEG says the company was prepared with crews pre-staged ahead of the storm.
"Crews continue to work and they're not going to stop working until all customers are restored," she said.
Neighbors still without power in the Southern Tier
Hurricane-like winds caused extensive damage in parts of Chautauqua County as well, knocking out power to thousands.
"We're finally, I think, towards the end of the cleanup," said Chautauqua County information officer Justin Gould. "We saw a lot of trees coming down, bringing down power lines with them from that storm earlier in the week."
National Grid spokesman David Bertola told Buckley they had about 100 power poles snap in Western New York, with more than 80 knocked out of service in Chautauqua County.
"A little bit more than half have been repaired as of this morning so that work has to continue as well," said Bertola.
By late Thursday morning, there were still about 1,000 customers without power in the Chautauqua region. Extra crews are now lending a hand.
"I think it's been great, we've had multiple teleconferences daily with National Grid, getting restoration times and what their plans were," said Fredonia and Pomfret fire chief Joshua Myers. "For my stance, it's not been frustrating. I do understand customers are probably a little frustrated."
Emergency and utility crews are bracing for another approaching storm system.
"It's a challenging event," said Bertola. "Always say Mother Nature is a tough opponent. It's like the World Series. This is game one and we've got game two coming up tomorrow."
The SUNY Fredonia Campus opened a warming center for anyone still without power.
"If 200 people show up today, great. If one person shows up, great," said Myers. "If we can put something in place that helps someone warm up a little, charge their phone, and come up with a plan, we're doing everything we can to help."
