For many people who live near the Great Lakes, the clock radio came on this morning, the coffee machine perked and the computer overloaded them with email. The weekend, however, will be a painful memory.
Across New York, at the height of the storm and storm damage, there were 300,000 electric customers without power. That included people and businesses without power and heat, as the temperature dropped into the 20s and 30s.
Public and private agencies were ready, with weather forecasts of the power of the storm starting days ago. Gov. Kathy Hochul came back to her hometown Western New York to deal with damage in familiar areas near Athol Springs and Hoover Beach.
"The brunt of that scene is particularly along the waterfront here," Hochul said. "Dunkirk and Genesee County experienced winds of upwards of 80 miles an hour. Other areas long Lake Ontario, 60 miles an hour. We have not seen significant flooding other than these very close to the waterfront homes. I do know Chautauqua County, the waterfront communities have also been hit hard, but inland there has not been a significant amount of damage."
Here is the summary of all the reports that we received from yesterday's #windstorm across the area: https://t.co/s7xMXJLNUD
— NWS Buffalo (@NWSBUFFALO) December 12, 2021
The map for this 15 page report is attached below. pic.twitter.com/8agfcJ8ZBo
Working into Sunday night, power companies with heavy reinforcements had reconnected the majority of customers. However, as of 6 a.m. Monday, some 4,400 NYSEG and National Grid customers were still without electricity.
Hochul praised residents for heeding the warnings.
"As a local town official, I can't tell you how many times I had to go out and survey damage like this, up all the way up to my time as lieutenant governor, where I was in charge of storm responses and operations centers here in Western New York. So we've been thorough this before. I want you to know our team is experienced. We're ready. And I also want to just commend this community, those who took precautions and stayed home and made sure they're not in their cars."
The push Monday is likely to be cleaning up the damage, like fallen trees, so homeowners and insurance companies can look at what happened.
