It took a few days, but all but one of O&R’s Rockland customers knocked out of service from the Christmas Eve storms have been brought back online. According to the company’s outage map, only one O&R customer in Chestnut Ridge remains without power. More than 13,000 customers lost electricity following last week’s powerful storms, which also shut dozens of roadways across the county.
Orange County Medical Group Under Investigation for Getting and Distributing COVID Vaccine Despite State’s Plans
An Orange County medical group is under the microscope after reports they somehow got some COVID vaccine and has begun distributing it to those who are not yet cleared to get it. The New York State Department of Health says they and the State Police are investigating Parcare Community Health Network based in Kiryas Joel. They are suspected of fraudulently obtaining the coronavirus vaccine and diverting it to members of the public, ignoring the state’s plans to administer it first to front line healthcare workers, nursing home residents and their staff.
COVID-19 by the numbers now, here in Rockland, we lost four more to COVID since last Thursday, the total count stands at 755. We’ve got four hospitalized being examined, another 100 there are confirmed cases, and a total of 1,929 active cases. Overall, we’ve had 26,048 reported cases, 209 more than Thursday.
Two Properties in Rockland Continue to Languish as Drains on Taxpayers
The fate of two properties in Rockland is still up in the air as 2020 comes to a close. The old Sain building and property in New City remain unoccupied, and Clarkstown legislator Harriet Cornell thinks it still has potential as a tourist destination …
Rockland’s County Executive Ed Day says he has been looking to the legislature to help unload the property for too long…
The Legislature’s Minority Leader, Lon Hofstein of Clarkstown, says the situation’s been studied enough and it’s time to unload it…
The last known bid for the building and property was $4.5 million dollars.
The other property whose sale is stalled is the 26-acre Letchworth Village campus and Stony Point golf course. Supervisor Jim Monaghan says the purchaser is still interested but the project may need to be scaled back, and in the meantime, it continues to be a drain on the taxpayers…
The project was to include a hotel and conference center, but Monaghan says in the COVID era, it’s unclear what the future holds for the property.
2,000+ O&R Customers in Rockland Expected to Get Power Back by 11pm Saturday Night
Most of the remaining 2,000 or so O&R customers without power in Rockland should have their power restored by 11pm tonight, the company said in a statement. Tens of thousands across O&R’s service area lost power following the strong Christmas Eve storms that barreled through the region.
O&R’s says the company’s entire workforce has been fully mobilized to restore service, support field work and address customer needs. To accelerate that service restoration, Con Edison dispatched 165 more overhead line techs to assist, bringing O&R’s emergency field response resources for this event to approximately 500 workers.
13,000+ Customers in Rockland Without Power Following Powerful Christmas Eve Storms
Orange & Rockland company and contractor overhead line crews, tree removal experts and more than 140 additional mutual aid line technicians worked overnight to restore power to almost 20,000 of the nearly 46,000 customers whose power was knocked out by heavy rain and strong wind gusts that continue to pummel the region today .
The mutual aid crews obtained by O&R have doubled O&R’s emergency field response resources and O&R employees have been recalled from vacation to aid in the service restoration effort.
In Rockland County there were 13,335 customers out as of this morning, with the three hardest hit communities including Clarkstown (5,776), Orangetown (2,603) and Airmont (1,285).