Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As residents across the Buffalo and Western New York region are working to clean up damage left by the fierce windstorm that ravaged the region Halloween and Friday, municipal crews across the region too are busy working to ensure roads are clear and areas around downed trees are safe as work continues.
With city crews working intricately nearby to remove a downed tree snared in power lines on Weiss Street, Buffalo Public Works Commissioner Mike Finn updated the city's efforts to address the substantial tree damage across the city, saying, "We left yesterday with over a hundred trees that we counted, whole or partial major trees, that needed to be cleared. Yesterday we got 50 of those remedied and today we're continuing the progress."
Finn also says the power restoration effort by National Grid was improving exponentially, with less than 3,000 customers in the city remaining without power as of midday Saturday. Five traffic signals were still impacted by the outages caused by the storms.
The city crews are working to make sure roads are clear first, concentrating along main and secondary streets and expanding into neighborhood streets as conditions and progress warrants. "This cleanup we do expect to last into next week", said Finn.