Photo by Scott Cornell

A shot looking east down an abandoned Commerce Street in Yorktown on Friday Feb. 26. The storm that caused so many power outages and fallen tree limbs dumped between 18-20 inches of snow on the town. For more photos, check out Facebook.com/NCNLocal

YORKTOWN – Some tree limbs remain down and many are still without power, but all municipal roads are now passable as Yorktown residents continue to shovel out from underneath the massive snowstorm that swept across the Northeast last week.

Consolidated Edison spokesman Allan Drury said March 1 about 3,000 customers across the county and 1,000 Yorktown residents still have no power, but that number fell to just over 100 by Tuesday.

Town Supervisor Susan Siegel said as of March 2, about 115 Yorktown residents were still without power, and many of those were individual homes and not large neighborhoods.

“I think we survived with everything intact. It’s been a slow process and unfortunately, some people just had to wait their turn,” Siegel said Tuesday. “We had a fantastic response from all our town employees.”

Bob McGee, a Con Ed spokesman, said the number of power outages in town were down to 28 by Tuesday night. In the Bronx and throughout Westchester County the Con Ed customers without out power totaled 288 on Tuesday, he said.

Con Ed crews are still cleaning up the mess, focusing first on areas where wires are touching the ground, Drury said Monday.

“Public safety comes first, but in terms of restoration, we try to deal with municipal customers quickly and hit areas where we can restore service to a lot of customers at once,” Drury said.
“A great majority of our calls were from people without power, in most cases caused by wires and trees being down, and we expect to have everybody in the county back up by tomorrow night.”

Highway Superintendent Eric DiBartolo said Monday his crews worked from the first snowfall until about 7 p.m. Friday night, with additional crews working Saturday and Sunday.
All roads in Yorktown, as of Sunday morning, Feb. 28, were passable, but some might still be tight and narrow due to trees encroaching on the lanes in some areas, DiBartolo said.
“It was a long weekend and it’s going to be a long process, probably about a month, to get it all cleaned up,” DiBartolo said. “I had four tree crews picking up brush today, moving limbs off the roadway, and there are wires down that we are still dealing with.”

The snowstorm shut down the town on Friday, Feb. 26 after Siegel declared a state of emergency beginning at 1 a.m. that morning.

The state of emergency was extended until 9 p.m. Friday.
At 1 p.m. on Friday, the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center opened as a drop-in center for anyone who lost heat and electricity to their homes.

Siegel said that the YCC closed its shelter facility on March 2.
Overall, the storm dropped about 18-20 inches of snow on Yorktown and the heavy snow that caused power lines and tree limbs to sag and fall resulted in road closures on Route 118 between Route 129 and Underhill Avenue, Crow Hill Road, Lake Road, Seven Bridges Road and Hunter Brook Road.

Baptist Church Road and Mohegan Lake were some other areas most affected by the storm, DiBartolo said.

On Monday, DiBartolo asked his crews to comb the plow routes and ensure there are no low-lying limbs impeding any traffic. DiBartolo said he spoke with Yorktown Central School District Assistant Superintendent Thomas Cole who reported no school bus delays on Monday morning.

The storm cost the town about $47,000 in labor and $12,000 in salt, material and liquid, and the labor cost could have skyrocketed if the majority of the storm hit during the weekend, which it did not, DiBartolo said.

“We’re most pleased that nobody got hurt, there were no major accidents and no residents had any fire or ambulance calls,” DiBartolo said. “The ones that really pulled through for me at the highway department was the police department, and I was on the phone constantly with the chief till about two or three in the morning on the night of the state of emergency.”

Because the town declared a state of emergency, it may be eligible for federal disaster funds, Siegel said. Yorktown must first determine a rough estimate for the cost of the storm and to see if it meets the qualifying threshold for federal funding.

“If we think we can qualify, then we’ll have to document everything we spent,” Siegel said. “Most of that will be overtime costs, then there’s wear and tear on the vehicles, and the cost may continue to go up because there’s a tremendous amount of brush that still has to be cleaned up.”

Siegel said she not spoken Parks and Recreation Superintendent Jen Fava as of March 2 to determine the condition of the town’s parks, but she had not heard about any structural damage in the parks.

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