Hundreds Remain Without Power After Storms – Governor Declares Statewide State of Emergency

Hundreds of customers remain without power today, July 17th after powerful storms hit the area both on Monday and Tuesday. The powerful storms resulted in a confirmed tornado in the Virgil area that traveled for 7.5 miles with winds of 80mph.

As of 9:45am, Wednesday, July 17th, NYSEG is reporting around 500 customers in Cortland County are still without power. Mainly in the areas of Harford, Cincinnatus, Willet, Marathon, Freetown, Virgil, and Taylor.

Neighboring communities to Cortland County including: Pitcher, Whitney Point, Smithiville, Lisle, and Killawog, are also experiencing outages still.

Governor Hochul has declared a statewide state of emergency as a result of the severe storms and has activated the state’s Emergency Operation Center.

“At Governor Hochul’s direction, the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services has activated the State Emergency Operations Center to Enhanced Monitoring Mode to track the storms in real-time and support local governments’ requests for assistance.”

The Governor’s Office said in a release.

Time of power restoration still widely varies due to each outage condition. NYSEG reports investigations are continuing on multiple outages and say estimated restore times could be tomorrow, July 18th by 10pm for some.