Special Advisory from the Briarcliff Manor Village Manager

village of briarcliff manor storm recovery advisoryStorm Recovery: @ October 31 (2:00 PM)
The enormity and wide spread destruction of Hurricane Sandy has caused severe disruption to all VBM communications … if you are receiving this report it is because we are broadcasting from a remote location.  Important information follows:

1.    Your Safety.  Please stay home and check on your neighbor.  Travel should be limited. Yes, the temptation to go out and drive around the village to witness the destruction is great … but it will also hamper recovery and could be dangerous to people besides you.  Halloween: it is a matter of SAFETY … that is the only issue.  We are telling everyone to please keep kids and family at home.  The current conditions (see below) and other concerns should be paramount in everyone’s mind. Our police will be out and directing people to stay or return home. 

2.    Opening Roads to traffic and for health and safety is our first priority. At least 30 roads are blocked with trees and/or downed power lines.  The obvious: Electric lines are NOT to be touched.  Do not remove barricades … and do not drive over downed power lines. We believe that we have located all known outages and included them in the Con Ed system. Our BMPD (941-2130) has the most up-to-date listing. Understand that our DPW cannot touch downed live wires. We are assisting Con Ed with the branches/trees but only after the wires are taken care of. Our DPW is ready to assist Con Ed but the number of available Con Ed Crews look limited at this time.

3.    Power Restoration: Unlike other storms, power restoration is not being done incrementally.  With crews coming even from California, recovery is vastly different. The sequence is: clear the power lines; open streets; and then power restoration.  While we will push for immediate area electric restoration, Con Ed is targeting near full restoration taking between 7-10 more days.

4.    Clean-Up now to avoid additional problems: First and foremost … DO NOT PILE leaves in your streets: keep storm sewers, catch basins and sidewalks free and clear. To do otherwise is to create safety hazards. It will only prolong clean-up and we will by-pass those of you who have jumbled the materials together. Next, while flooding was minimal, the amount of tree damage and leaf drop was huge. Therefore, you are directed (and are responsible to direct your landscapers) to create separate piles: one for leaves; another for branches and other similar wood debris- limbs are to be cut into manageable sizes.  Keep them separate.  Do not place logs or tree trunks out: we will not be picking them up. Based on worker availability, the DPW will be picking up of the debris by types of material virtually 7 days aweek.  Questions: call DPW at 941-9105.

Other items:

  • The MTA, AMTRAK and Metro-North Scarborough Station is open; Check with the MTA for service.
  • Briarcliff and Ossining School systems: no information at this time.

Philip E. Zegarelli, VM
pzegarelli@briarcliffmanor.org
Report 39C @ 31 October 2012

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