Area may have been hit with a tornado

From CBS 2:

Queens residents are waking up to storm damage Friday after severe weather moved through the area.

After 10 p.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Queens, the Bronx and northern Nassau County and some College Point residents reported seeing funnel clouds, CBS2’s Jenna DeAngelis reported.

It’s still not clear if a tornado did in fact touch down, but severe thunderstorms did roll through the area, knocking down trees and power lines.

A two-mile stretch of College Point to Whitestone took the brunt of the damage, however there have reports elsewhere. In Jackson Heights, pictures of downed trees were taken near 86th Street and Roosevelt Avenue.

Stop butchering street trees

From CBS New York:

Residents of certain sections of Queens have said their beautiful, tree-lined streets are being massacred, and the storms of the past year are not to blame.

Rather, as CBS 2’s Hazel Sanchez reported, the residents of Auburndale and Bayside blame Con Edison.

Con Edison contractors have been making the rounds trimming trees around power lines. But the odd-looking end results are not aesthetically acceptable for the many neighbors.

Con Ed officials said, “Overgrown and fallen tree limbs are the leading cause of power outages during storms, and their tree maintenance program is critical in keeping the lights on.

But some residents argued there has to be a better option.

“The ultimate solution is to put the wires underground, because this way it’s for safety reasons,” said Henry Euler of the Auburndale Civic Association. “And it’s less likely to lose power during storms and it just looks better in the neighborhood.”

Underground power lines to be studied

From AM-NY:

The City Council yesterday unanimously passed a bill to explore the possibility of moving New York City's power lines underground. The bill requires the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability (OLTPS) to conduct a study that will determine where in the city relocation of the power lines would be most effective and help strengthen the infrastructure in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

Sandy left nearly 2 million New York City residents without power. Areas with underground power lines had service restored within a few days, but the neighborhoods with above-ground power lines were without service for weeks in some cases, according to the City Council's office.

So much for that

From the Daily News:

Two-thirds of the storm-ravaged buildings whose owners sought help from Mayor Bloomberg’s Rapid Repair program are still not fixed — two months after Hurricane Sandy hit, the Daily News has learned.

With registration set to end Monday, Rapid Repairs has completed work on only 4,216 of the 12,555 buildings enrolled in Rapid Repairs — just one in three.

“Work has begun on another 2,506, with another 5,833 remaining,” Peter Spencer, spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery, said Friday.

Eleven days after the storm, Mayor Bloomberg announced Rapid Repairs — a $500 million, first-of-a-kind effort to quickly restore power and heat to homes devastated by Sandy. “In the neighborhoods hardest hit by Sandy, homeowners need help fixing their homes — and they need it now,” the mayor declared.

The city agreed to pay contractors to assess the damage and get power, heat and hot water back up and running right away. Within 10 days, 6,000 homeowners had enrolled.
More than two months later, thousands of homeowners are still waiting. The city hired Tishman to assess damage, but many homeowners complained the firm wound up doing repeat assessments and losing paperwork while no actual work was done.

Con Ed may bury overhead power lines

From the Times Newsweekly:

As the city embarks on rebuilding from the damage left behind by Hurricane Sandy, Con Edison is reportedly warming up to the idea of burying overhead utility wires into underground ducts.

“Putting major overhead power lines underground is ... a consideration and will be examined in greater detail,” said a statement from Con Edison in announcing that it will invest $250 million on “measures that can help protect critical equipment from flood damage.”

Residents in Middle Village, Maspeth, Woodhaven, Forest Hills and other areas of Queens which are powered by overhead lines lost power for several days following Hurricane Sandy after wires and poles were knocked down either by the wind or by fallen trees and branches that were toppled by the gusts.

Con Edison’s announcement came last Thursday, Dec. 6, after Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined a plan for reinforcing the city’s infrastructure during the rebuilding process to reduce the chances that the severe damages caused by Sandy will be repeated.

In his speech, Bloomberg said that he would work with Gov. Andrew Cuomo on finding ways to speed up the investment of “distributed energy, micro-grids, energy storage and smart grid technologies” in order to reduce the risk and length of power outages.