SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — National Grid restored power to about 100 customers on Syracuse’s North Side Monday afternoon after strong winds brought down scaffolding at a construction site across the street from St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center. The scaffolding was ripped from the side of an apartment building that is under construction and fell onto nearby utility lines just after 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Several businesses in the surrounding area were unable to open due to the power outage. This included the Subway and Kinney Drugs at the intersection of North Townsend Street and Butternut Street.
Winds reached dangerous levels across the state of New York on Sunday and Monday, exceeding 70 mph in Buffalo. At Syracuse Hancock International Airport, the winds topped out at 54 mph around the same time the scaffolding fell Sunday night.
These winds caused widespread damage throughout the state. The outage on Syracuse’s North Side was just one of 65,000 statewide, according to National Grid spokesperson Virginia Limmiatis.
“Onondaga County seems to be in pretty good condition,” Limmiatis said, comparing Onondaga to other counties.
She added, “There are pockets of outages throughout the Central New York division, certainly far less than the Western division. We have crews that are being mobilized and restoring customers as quickly and safely as possible.”
The outage on Syracuse’s North Side is the only significant damage the wind caused in Onondaga County, Limmiatis said.
The city closed a block of North Townsend Street from East Laurel Street to Union Avenue in order to fix the scaffolding. A crew used four Genie forklifts to lift the scaffolding off the utility wires and to secure it to the side of the building.
National Grid workers fixed the scaffolding and reopened the street around 4 p.m. Monday. However, this was too late for some businesses in the area.
Subway franchise owner and manager Andreas Tan lost a whole day of business from the power outage.
“Well our main business is lunch, so if we pass lunch time that means we have no business for today,” Tan said.
He explained the power outage made it so he could not use his oven, his sandwich unit, or his Point of Sale (POS) register.
“We rely on power,” Tan said. “No power, no business.”
By the time power was restored at 4 p.m., Tan could not open his restaurant on Monday, he said.
Tan added, “Hopefully we’ll be ready for business tomorrow. Just keep the fingers crossed.”
