SULLIVAN COUNTY — Heavy rain and winds battered Sullivan County on Tuesday afternoon as a result of Tropical Storm Isaias. By that night, it had dropped between three and six inches of water in some areas and left thousands of residents without power.

Nearly 12,000 people in Sullivan County were without power as of 6 p.m. on Tuesday, according to Public Safety Commissioner Rick Sauer. By 8:45 Wednesday morning that number was still around 8,948 with all three utility companies (New York State Electric and Gas, Orange and Rockland Utilities and Central Hudson Gas & Electric) working throughout the county to restore power to essential services and residents.

Sauer reported to the legislature's Public Safety and Law Enforcement Committee yesterday morning that the number of people still without power was down to around 3,700.

NYSEG reported Wednesday night that more than 1,900 out of the total 21,151 impacted customers in the company's Liberty division (which includes Delaware, Orange, Sullivan and Ulster counties) were still without power. The company said it expected to restore power to 95 percent of customers impacted in the division by 11 p.m. last night.

As of Thursday morning, Orange and Rockland Utilities was still reporting over 1,000 customers without service around Glen Spey and Pond Eddy, 255 customers without service in Forestburgh and hundreds more around Yankee Lake and Wurtsboro Hills.

The storm toppled trees and brought down electric lines over a wide area. In the Village of Monticello, wires were down and blocking the roadway near the intersection of Park and York Avenues. A tree toppled over onto a house in Westbrookville, but there were no injuries reported. Local fire departments and EMS crews responded to multiple water rescue incidents.

Some of the worst affected areas included Jeffersonville, Kohlertown, Fallsburg, Liberty and Monticello, as well as the southeastern part of the county including the Towns of Mamakating and Lumberland.

Sauer said the county was already planning its response to the impending tropical storm on Sunday and Monday, including having conference calls with the National Weather Service to track the storm's path.

“Early Tuesday morning I got a call from the National Weather Service saying they predicted three to four inches of rain but they're upping that to four or five inches of rain,” Sauer said.

He explained how some state resources were directed to Sullivan County ahead of the storm, including an additional Swift Water Rescue Team from the New York Office of Fire Prevention and Control (see page 2A).

Conditions were clear on Wednesday even as work continued to clear debris and restore power to residents. Sauer said State Department of Transportation (DOT) Crews were on Route 42 in Forestburgh waiting for O&R Utilities to cut the power to down wires so they could clear fallen trees from the road. It was a similar story in other places, including County Route 55 (Mountaindale Road) near its intersection with Tempaloni Road, CR 62 (Winterton Road) and CR 65 (Upper Road) in the Town of Mamakating. Trees could not be removed until Orange and Rockland Utilities, which was dealing with significant damage in Orange County, responded to down electrical lines.

By yesterday afternoon all three county roads had reopened.

The Sullivan County 911 Center was reporting issues with Frontier Communications' services.

“Due to a widespread Frontier Communications telephone outage, Frontier customers in the towns of Highland, Mamakating, Tusten, Lumberland and Roscoe may experience difficulty making calls - including calls to 911,” the E-911 Center said in a statement.

Verizon, Spectrum and other VOIP customers appeared to be unaffected by this issue and the 911 Center remained operational.

County E-911 Coordinator Alex Rau said the issue with Frontier Communications was largely resolved as of Thursday morning, with more tests ongoing.

The storm reportedly knocked out power to Orange County's 911 Center for several hours and their calls were being rerouted through Rockland and Sullivan Counties.

Rau said they received between 500 and 600 calls within a four-hour period during the storm.

“We doubled our staff for that period of time and we were able to handle things smoothly,” Rau said.