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Storm clean up & awaiting power restoration

Posted at 4:02 PM, Nov 01, 2019
and last updated 2019-11-01 19:44:45-04

Storm aftermath is being assessed Friday. Thousands of residents lost power, others experienced flooded basements. In the city of Buffalo there were plenty of downed trees and power lines. Thousands of customers woke up in the dark.

A large tree came crashing down on this Ashland Avenue home in Buffalo.

“It was just wind shear that broke off the rotted base,” said Mike Dugan, Specialized Tree Service.

Dugan and his crew were working to remove the tree. We also found more downed trees in the city’s nearby Fruitbelt district.

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Two grees were uprooted on a section of Locust Street in Buffalo.

On Locust Street two trees were uprooted overnight.

“My daughter woke me up about 2’ o'clock in the morning – 'ma – did you see that tree?' I said what tree?” remarked Judy Quigley.

The Locust Street resident said her grandchildren missed the school bus because the street was blocked. She didn't lose power, but the downed trees pulled on the power lines.

On Northhampton near Michigan Avenue there was another downed tree. Some neighbors did lose power Thursday night...

“It went out around about 9:30 and around about 11 o’clock it came back on for about maybe 20-minutes and then it went back out and it didn’t come back until around about 11:30 or so,” said Minister Darden, Northhampton Street resident.

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Uprooted tree on Northhampton near Michigan Ave.

Darden was among the thousands of National Grid customers knocked out in the Buffalo region. He says it seems like every time there's a storm, he loses power.

“But now it seems like we get a drop of rain and everything just crashes – so I really don’t know what they can do other than to maybe rebuild it maybe whatever has to be done,” Darden noted.

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Another uprooted three was blocking an entire section of Linwood Avenue near Bryant.

Another uprooted three was blocking an entire section of Linwood Avenue near Bryant.

“Well I was just walking my dog and kind of shocked to see this,” said Mary Pat Schreck.

The tree specialist tells us more and more city trees are falling since the October 2006 storm ripped out thousands of city trees.

“Previously the October storm kind of weakened all the bad trees – well now we are starting to catch up to trees maturing and showing their age,” Dugan explained.

As of 3 p.m. Friday more than 20,000 National Grid customers were still without service. National Gridis urging customers to log on with their account information for various restoration times. Currently the estimated restoration time for Buffalo area customers is slated for Saturday, November 2 at 8 p.m.