FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22, 2018
Contact: John Lyon 845-638-5645

New City, NY – County Executive Ed Day, Acting Director of Fire and Emergency Services Chris Jensen, town supervisors, village mayors and representatives of Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. met at the Fire Training Center in Pomona to discuss concerns with O&R's coordination and response strategies. This meeting had been planned since the March nor'easters that left Rockland residents in the dark for days.

"It is critical that we as a County continue to work collaboratively to identify any and all strategies that can improve storm response and recovery efforts," said County Executive Day. "The goal now is to move forward so future storm response efforts are handled in the most efficient manner possible."

The meeting lasted 90 minutes with officials present discussing the new O&R Emergency Response Plan. The revised plan includes new and enhanced staffing patterns that identify additional personnel to each level of their event response and are a direct result of the utilities responses to this past March's nor'easter storms. Elected officials voiced the concerns of their residents relating to communication from O&R during storm events and how to better coordinate response and cleanup.

"The county continues to strengthen our working relationship with Orange & Rockland after each storm event. We meet routinely to discuss the utility's successful components of their responses as well as those areas in which Orange & Rockland needs to enhance," said Acting Director of Fire and Emergency Services Jensen. "We continue to work together to improve our ability to communicate during emergency situations, to quickly identify potential solutions, as well as work to identify external resources to assist the utility in their restoration efforts."

All the meetings participants have heard, loud and clear, the concerns of residents and pledged to work together to improve future recovery efforts.

"We all share the same goal of safe and efficient storm recovery for our community," said Orange & Rockland President and CEO Robert Sanchez. "Without a doubt, working together offers us all an opportunity to strengthen our emergency response plans for the benefit of our customers."

One of the key takeaways from the meeting was to reiterate that every residents needs to notify Orange and Rockland if they are without power. O&R also reported that fixes and improvements have been implemented in regards to their outage map and phone system.

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