ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - State transportation crews sent downstate to help clear roads had to do an about-face Tuesday after the nor’easter failed to live up to its blizzard billing in New York City but kept dumping snow on upstate areas.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the city and Long Island were spared the worst of the storm battering the Northeast, but he stressed that other areas of New York were getting pummeled by heavy snow and wind.
“The mid-Hudson area up to the Capital District has been hit very hard,” Cuomo told reporters Tuesday morning during a storm briefing in New York City.
More than 9,000 electric customers lost power late Tuesday afternoon in the mid-Hudson Valley and the Catskills, where many areas were already under more than a foot of snow. By 10 p.m. Tuesday, power had been restored to most of those customers.
Hundreds of school districts from Buffalo to New York City canceled classes and state workers were told to stay home if they held nonessential jobs as Cuomo declared a state of emergency Tuesday for all New York’s 62 counties, including New York City’s five boroughs.
The Democratic governor said the state redeployed some personnel and equipment from downstate to the Southern Tier, mid-Hudson Valley and the Albany region.
The Department of Transportation tweeted Monday that DOT crews, some from as far away as Chautauqua County in the state’s southwest corner, had left for downstate areas to help deal with potential blizzard conditions. But the National Weather Service said the storm tracked closer to the coast than expected, introducing warmer air into the region that changed the snow into a wintry mix in the metropolitan area.
The storm’s shift didn’t spare upstate areas, however, and by late afternoon towns in the Binghamton area were reporting two feet or more of snow, while parts of the Hudson Valley had received up to 26 inches. The weather service says some areas of the Catskills could get up to 30 inches by the time the storm subsides Wednesday.
Cuomo said the state’s response included 5,000 plows, trucks and other equipment and 2,000 National Guard personnel.
He urged New Yorkers to stay home and off the roads as the storm moves through, but that didn’t keep some people from running errands despite the storm’s severity.
Paul Hudson said roads on his 3-mile drive to the Altamont post office outside Albany were slippery and only partially plowed. Still, he decided to risk it to pick up a Harley-Davidson jacket waiting in the mail.
“Priorities, right?” he said with a laugh. “I have a four-wheel-drive truck. I?d thought I?d take a chance.”
Blizzard warnings remain in effect for a region stretching from northern Westchester County through the Hudson Valley to the Canadian border in northern New York.
___
Associated Press writers Michael Hill and David Klepper in Albany contributed to this report.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.