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“We all said this would not take days but weeks,” Mayor Mike Spano said during a press briefing Thursday inside the Office of Emergency Management. “City crews are working around the clock to mitigate the damage and bring our lives back to normal as soon as possible.”
In the nearly 72 hours after the storm swept through Yonkers, the city has fielded more than 600 calls of downed trees, officials said. While crews have managed to clear hundreds of them from city streets, hundreds more still remain on the ground.
All of the major intersections and thoroughfares in the city have been cleared but as of Thursday afternoon there were more than 120 neighborhood roads that remained blocked by fallen trees.
Spano said they were working hard to fix that.
“Our top priority today is to remove trees and clear roadways in our neighborhoods,” he said.
The mayor said his office has fielded some calls from residents upset with the pace of the cleanup but urged everyone to keep recent events in perspective and know recovery efforts are well underway.
“We’re not Breezy Point and we’re not New Jersey,” he said. “We’re a city that has some down trees and some people without electricity. When the trees are cleaned up and the powers put back on our lives will go right back to normal.”
Meanwhile, as of Thursday afternoon, Con Edison estimated that 18,795 out of 75,568 customers in the city of Yonkers were without power, down from 21,308 the day before.
On Wednesday, the mayor expressed his frustrations with what he called a “somewhat slow” response from the power company. A day later, the mayor said Con Ed was stepping up to the plate.
“Con Ed has upped its game a little bit,” he said. “But we’re taking it day-by-day.”
Spano and Police Commissioner Charles Gardner also reminded residents to be wary of price gouging that may result as people become desperate for gasoline. Last year, when Tropical Storm Irene swept through the city, one Yonkers gas station owner was fined thousands after he allegedly hiked up prices by roughly $1 per gallon more than the average.
Spano said people should follow a simple rule when keeping an eye out for price gougers:
“If it looks like it is too high, it probably is,” he said.
Anyone who suspects an price gouging is occurring should call the Yonkers Consumer Protection Bureau HELPLINE at (914) 377-3000.
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