Power has been restored across Ancram after a fast-moving Fourth of July storm blocked 15 town roads with debris and wires, toppled trees, and damaged property.
The town bore the brunt of the storm’s damage and lingering outages in the Herald’s five-town coverage area. On Monday afternoon, 289 Central Hudson customers in Ancram remained without service, according to Joe Jenkins, the utility’s senior manager of media relations. At the same time, 37 customers were out in Stanford, 35 in Milan, 30 in Gallatin, and fewer than five in Pine Plains.
By Tuesday morning, all Central Hudson customers in Ancram had regained power. Outages persisted elsewhere, with 35 customers still without service in Milan, 16 in Stanford, nine in Gallatin, and fewer than five in Pine Plains, Jenkins said.
Central Hudson’s outage map listed 10 p.m. Tuesday as the estimated restoration time for remaining outages, though Jenkins said some customers could regain power sooner. The utility expected remaining customers in northern Dutchess County to be restored by the end of the day.
Across Central Hudson’s full service territory, more than 56,000 customers were affected over the course of the storm, Jenkins said. A little more than 30,000 were affected within the utility’s Poughkeepsie operating district, which covers much of Dutchess County north of Wappingers Falls and a small portion of Columbia County.
Central Hudson had been monitoring forecasts that called for possible thunderstorms on the evening of July 4, Jenkins said, but the system proved substantially stronger than anticipated.
“This storm outperformed any of the predicted models that we had seen in terms of its severity,” he said.
Jenkins said winds “far exceeded 50 miles an hour” in parts of the region and caused extensive damage from fallen trees and limbs. He said he was not aware of any confirmation of tornadic activity.
The scale of the damage prompted Central Hudson to bring in 340 additional line workers from outside its service area, along with 96 additional line-clearance workers. Jenkins said Monday that the utility had a total field force of 589 line and tree-clearance workers deployed.
In Ancram, the first task was simply clearing a way through.
Town Highway Superintendent Jim Miller said fallen trees and wires closed 15 roads overnight. Wiltsie Bridge Road, Snyder Road, 4 Corners Road, and Lake Shore Road were among the most heavily affected, he said.
Miller and his three-person crew spent more than four hours Saturday night clearing debris. By 11 a.m. Sunday, he said, all town roads were again safe for travel.
“I had the snow plow on my pick-up, a big payloader, and the other two got another truck,” Miller said. “I don’t want to relive it again anytime soon.”
The storm also left its mark on homes.
At Supervisor Colleen Lutz’s house, a large limb broke from a maple tree in the backyard and punctured the roof. Patio furniture was smashed, but no one was hurt.
“With a break in the weather, we at least were able to get up on there and cover the roof enough so that it won’t get wet when we get a lot of rain,” Lutz said. “It appears the chimney might have gotten grazed.”
Lutz drove around town on the evening of July 4 to assess the damage. With trees and utility lines down across the area, she warned residents to assume any fallen wire was energized.
“The biggest concern for us is that everyone should treat a wire down as a live wire, always assume it’s live and stay back,” she said.
On Maple Lane, Craig and Lynn Murphy were sitting on their patio with their daughter, Alyssa, and her boyfriend, Barry Paradise, when the wind suddenly intensified and rain swept in.
Visibility dropped so sharply that they could no longer see the trees across the street, Craig said. The family went inside.
Then came the impact.
“It sounded like a train had hit the house,” said Lynn.
A tree had fallen against the side of the house and onto the couple’s bright red 2019 Hyundai Sonata.
“All of a sudden we’re talking, and boom, the tree fell like an earthquake,” Lynn said. “We thought the windows broke because we heard glass shatter but it was the dishes that fell out of the cupboard.”
The Sonata was totaled, the couple said. The house fared better: A few small shingles came loose, but the roof remained intact.
For some residents, the effects lingered well into Monday.
Greg Morris, who lives on Route 22, said his electricity did not return until about 2 p.m. Monday. The outage also cut off the home’s running water.
“We didn’t have running water and we had to throw out some of the food from our refrigerator,” Morris said.
Central Hudson distributed bottled water and dry ice Monday at the Stanford Fire House, where residents coping with outages and storm damage came for supplies.
Marie Sharron, a LaGrangeville resident, said Monday that she had been without power since Saturday night and came for water and dry ice. She said her backyard was covered with downed apple trees and that she was home when the storm struck.
“I took the dogs and we went into the basement,” Sharron said. “Hail was hitting the windows and it was coming sideways. It was real bad.”
The dry ice distribution was delayed by three hours after an unanticipated problem with a third-party vendor, Jenkins said.
Beyond the immediate recovery, Jenkins said Central Hudson is strengthening its electric system as severe weather becomes more frequent. He said those efforts include replacing aging infrastructure and installing stronger poles and wiring.
“There’s certainly a trend line that indicates that severe weather has become more frequent in recent years,” Jenkins said. “And we are certainly responding to that.”
While outages continued Monday, Lutz said Ancram Town Hall was available as a cooling shelter for residents, including those who needed a place to spend the night. With power now restored across the town, she urged residents to keep looking out for one another.
“Check on your neighbors, check on your family, make sure everyone’s doing okay,” Lutz said. “We’ll get through it.”