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The blustering nor’easter came in with a bang, hitting a city still suffering from the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy. As city snow plows hit the streets for the first time this season, residents ducked for cover and tried to escape the storm.
“This is rough,” Jane Kauffman said as she shook off the snow in the lobby of the Yonkers Public Library’s Riverfront Branch. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad.”
By mid-afternoon, Yonkers was already covered in a sheet of icy snow, with another 1 to 3 inches projected to fall.
Meanwhile, there were reports of traffic delays on the Westbound Cross County Parkway and on a handful of city streets, thanks to the slick road conditions.
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said the county was on full alert for the storm and he urged residents to stay indoors.
“The same rules that applied to Sandy apply to this storm,” Astorino said. “I urge residents to use common sense and err on the side of caution.”
To make matters worse, more than 5,000 people were still without power as of Wednesday morning. Con Edison officials said they expected some of the restoration work could be put on hold and said new outages could result from the high winds and snowfall that were bearing down on trees and branches weakened by Hurricane Sandy.
“The new storm could delay Con Edison's customer restorations,” the power company said in a statement. “Crews repairing overhead lines and equipment cannot work in high winds.”
With temperatures dropping into the low 30s and wind chills in the teens, Astorino encouraged residents without power to seek shelter away from their homes.
“Any residents who remain without power should consider taking shelter with friends or relatives or in their local community warming shelter,” he said.
In the Ludlow Park neighborhood, some residents without power had connected extension cords to other homes with electricity and were using that to generate their heat.
Resident Cindy Pramann said she was one of the fortunate ones as her power was restored early Tuesday morning.
“Now we’re just hoping it stays on,” she said.
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