Jose Aldana did not think twice.
The off-duty Con Edison worker was throwing out the trash at the height of the weekend’s nor’easter on Saturday evening, March 13 when he noticed that the overhead power lines at 90th Street and 86th Road in Woodhaven had caught fire.
“As a Con Ed employee, I have Storm Assessment Duty Training,” Aldana told The Courier. “I didn’t even think about it, it was something I just did.”
He quickly donned his Con Ed rain suit and boots, “roped off the area, and tried to stop traffic.”
“I was trying to call the police and fire departments, but couldn’t get through,” he said. However, members of the 102nd Precinct arrived shortly afterward.
“Jose really did an exceptional job,” said Woodhaven resident Richard Fogal, a witness who said that he could not get through on 9-1-1 either. “He put his safety aside.”
The powerful storm, which Con Ed spokesperson Chris Olert called “the worst storm in a couple of decades,” left tens of thousands in Queens without power as wind-driven rain downed trees, which brought down power lines.
As of 6 a.m. Tuesday, March 16, Olert said that Con Ed crews – 600 in the field –had restored power to over 100,000 customers. Five hundred in Queens were still without electricity; at the height of the storm, 12,900 were left without power.
In Howard Beach, as of 4:50 p.m. Monday, 110 customers were still out; in Woodhaven the number was 1,200; and in Bayside, it was fewer than three dozen, according to Olert.
Hamilton Beach was especially hard hit.
See storm photos from across Queens
According to long-time resident Roger Gendron, on Saturday night, at high tide, there was 3 ½ feet of water in front of his Davenport Court home. He had five to six inches in his basement.
“Normally it wouldn’t be a problem – we’d just pump it out, but we had no power,” he said.
Gendron told The Courier that neither he nor his neighbors had electricity, though his was restored on Monday afternoon.
The storm was so fierce in the area that Gendron said seven phone poles on the Transit Authority side of a fence toppled onto 104th Street. The main road in to and out of Hamilton Beach was blocked, he said, and a neighbor opened his property in order to let people pass through.
“God forbid there was a fire or emergency we would have been hard pressed to get help.”
“It really was one of the worst storms in recent memory, and some parts of the city saw wind gusts of almost 80 miles an hour,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “And obviously a storm that size causes some real damage to homes and businesses and brought down thousands of city trees. And when the trees come down, we all know what happens to electricity and to the telephone lines; they go out in parts of the city.”
Bloomberg continued, “NYPD has received the second highest volume of 9-1-1 calls ever on Saturday, with 124 call takers handling the 65,000 calls generated mainly by bad weather. Fifty 9-1-1 operators were brought in on their day off to supplement the 70 already there. Highway Patrol, ESU and NYPD staff responded through the night to flooded roads, downed trees, power lines, and other dangerous conditions. [Additionally] 3-1-1 received almost 110,000 calls for the weekend, nearly three times the typical weekend number.”
Addressing residents’ concerns that they got a message when dialing 9-1-1 during the storm, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Paul J. Brown said, “Callers who dial 9-1-1 to report an emergency and receive a message to stay on the line should do so.
Hanging up and redialing puts the caller at the end of the queue.”
“I remember Hurricane Gloria and all the build up to it,” said Ed Wendell, President of the Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association. “And that was not nearly as bad. This was actually a lot worse.”
Wendell said that while walking through Forest Park on Sunday morning, March 14, he noticed several fallen trees that came down across the roadways.
During the restoration process, Con Ed will work on primary distribution feeders first, with the highest priority given to restoring lines that supply the most customers. Next, the crews fix secondary facilities, such as transformers and secondary cables, again with highest priority given to lines supplying the greatest number of customers. Individual services, lines serving a single home, will be restored as crews become available. Customers are urged to call Con Edison immediately to report any outages at 1-800-75-CONED (1-800-752-6633).
As for Aldana and his act of bravery, he has been nominated for an award.
“Con Ed employees are notorious for looking out for their neighbors, on and off the job,” said Olert. “This gentleman is the best of the best.”
