NEW YORK – Crews across New York City spent Saturday cleaning up damage caused by the remains of Debby.
The city’s Parks Department said they received over 500 reports of fallen trees across the cityQueens had the highest number of service requests with 216, followed by the Bronx and Brooklyn.
Hundreds of trees fall in NYC as storms pass through
With the weather dry and the sun shining, crews were busy cleaning up what turned out to be a domino effect of damage at the corner of 103rd Street and Christie Avenue in the Corona neighborhood of Queens.
“That pole broke, the tree broke, and when he came down, he probably hit that [wires] “Get down,” said neighbor Bob Massano.
Massano has lived there with his brother Bill for about 50 years, and they both said they’ve never seen a storm this bad on their block without their power going out.
On Friday, Massano texted Con Edison to warn him of potentially dangerous power lines, since the electricity at home was still working.
“I was hoping they would come and turn the power off or do something like that, but Con Ed, I know they were busy,” he said.
But the automated responses were not helpful.
“We never had any power outages. They kept saying ‘your power will be back at midnight,’ ‘your power will be back at 3 a.m.’ I kept saying that’s not the problem, the danger is the power lines falling on the houses,” Massano said.
Con Edison said anyone concerned about downed lines should stay away from them, treat them as if they have power and call 911.
Neighbors along Christie Avenue said several cars were damaged, but they are glad no one was injured, even though it was a close call.
“I saved his life,” said neighbor William Narvaez.
Narvaez happened to help a man sleeping on the sidewalk get away from a tree just before it fell. He and crews who were there Saturday said the tree was rotting and it was only a matter of time before it fell. Narvaez was out walking just before the storm caused damage.
“I was just walking for 10 minutes and the tree fell,” he said. “There’s always a reason why you’re in certain places … I can’t even imagine that.”
Storms from Debby cause power outages for thousands in New York area
Con Edison said there had been 4,200 power outages across the city since Friday, most of which have been restored.
At its peak, 14,000 Con Ed customers in Westchester County lost power. As of Saturday night, about 600 customers were without power, primarily in Croton, New Castle and Ossining. Con Ed estimates that it will have the lights back on for 95% of customers in the county by midnight.
Major power outages continued Saturday for JCP&L, with 2,500 customers still affected. PSEG Long Island reported just over 100 customers without power Saturday night.
In Rockland and Orange counties, just over 100 customers were still in the dark.
PSE&G faced dozens of outages in New Jersey.
