Winds of up to 50 mph in some areas were barreling through drafty windows of homes in the region on Thursday evening, Christmas Eve, into the early hours of Christmas morning. Anyone who was still wrapping presents at 2:45am felt the windows shake, while some felt their entire houses shake. Little children snug in their beds may have woken up early from the sound of their bedroom doors shivering in their doorknob latches, as the wind whipped through the house. New homeowners in the area may have awoken to new attic leaks that they knew nothing about, or basement flooding, shed flooding, and/or a power outage.

As reported by Central Hudson, the power company’s repair crews “are working throughout the service area to restore power to customers after heavy rains and wind gusts of more than 50 mph in some areas toppled limbs and trees, causing widespread outages. More than 36,000 homes and businesses within Central Hudson’s service area and nearly 300,000 customers in the northeast were impacted by the storm.”

In Dutchess County, 14,095 customers were without power as of 10am Friday morning. As of 1:30pm that number was 13,700. Ryan Hawthorne, Assistant Vice President of Electric Engineering and Operations, outlined how mutual aid has come in to help this area with additional workers. “We have a compliment of 320 line and tree professionals working to restore our customers’ power with 26 more line workers from Vermont expected to arrive later today. Yesterday, mutual aid assistance from Michigan, Indiana and Iowa arrived, and we have retained our local contractors to assist in the repair of nearly 650 damage locations. In addition, hundreds of employees are working in support roles throughout the holiday to expedite restorations. We aim to restore power to approximately half of our customers by end of day Friday.”

Central Hudson will be distributing dry ice on Friday from noon to 5 p.m. at these locations:

Home Depot, Fishkill – 450 Route 9, Fishkill, NY 12524

Rosendale Recreation Center – 1055 Route 32, Rosendale, NY 12472