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“This is not over,” Mayor Mike Spano said briefing inside the Office of Emergency Management. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
The powerful tropical storm, downgraded from a hurricane Monday evening, left nearly 20,000 city residents without power, the biggest power outage in the city’s history, Spano said, He added it could be as long as five days before power is fully restored throughout Yonkers.
High winds also knocked down an estimated 160 trees citywide, a number the mayor said was conservative. Commissioner of Public Works Thomas Meier said city crews are working around the clock to clean-up the damage.
“We are now in the recovery phase,” he said.
Meanwhile, state police said one Yonkers resident was killed when his car struck a tree that had fallen across the Sprain Brook Parkway in Greenburgh.
City officials urged residents to stay put while crews cleanup the damage.
“Just because the storm is over and the weather looks better, doesn’t mean you should go out,” Meier said. “If you don’t need to go out, stay home.”
On Tuesday morning, the Yonkers Fire Department continued pumping water out of the basement at the Yonkers Riverfront Library and Board of Education building at 1 Larkin Center after it was flooded during a storm surge Monday night.
A handful of high-rise buildings, including Scrimshaw House and 1 Pier Pointe, had at least two feet of water in the lobby when that same storm surge from the Hudson River crested over the boardwalk and overflowed onto the waterfront.
Thankfully, Spano said, many of the areas in Yonkers prone to flooding, including the Longvale neighborhood and Brooklands co-op complex, escaped the storm with no flooding.
Meanwhile, Yonkers Fire Commissioner Robert Sweeney said the department had a "hectic" 24-hour period, responding to more than 500 calls, including three structure fires throughout the city.
While the damages from Sandy are still being tallied, it could easily wind up being in the millions of dollars, Spano said.
“This was a major event for our region,” he said. “It could take days before we are back into full operation.”
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