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North Castle Hopes For Long-Term Storm Damage Plan

ARMONK, N.Y. – More than two weeks after Hurricane Sandy hit North Castle, the town is just beginning to get back to normal as almost all residents have finally had electricity restored to their homes.

The North Castle Town Board  pledged to work toward putting a plan to prevent long term storm cleanup.

The North Castle Town Board pledged to work toward putting a plan to prevent long term storm cleanup.

Photo Credit: Robert Michelin

After this was the second year in a row that a major storm hit the area, North Castle Town Supervisor Howard Arden is pledging to work toward putting a plan in place that would prevent such a long clean-up period.

"I've been analyzing the situation and it can't continue this way," Arden said of the storm cleanup at last week's Town Board meeting. "It's just not acceptable."

Arden said that last year members of the Town Board had a similar issues following Hurricane Irene and met with members of Con Edison to create a resolution. Arden said a plan was not put in place following Irene and that something must be done after 98 percent of town residents were left without power following Sandy for a significant period of time.

"Last year when we met with Con Ed, everybody verbally lambasted them and they took their beating and nothing really happened," Arden said. "It's bigger than just North Castle obviously, but we can work with other towns and officials."

The main reason why so many residents in North Castle lost power was because of fallen trees and downed wires. Arden said there are only two solutions to that problem: cutting down the trees or bury the power lines in the ground, which is a much more likely solution.

Town Board member John Cronin said working toward burying more power lines throughout North Castle should be a goal of the board's in 2013.

"The power problem is going to require a long term fix that is not inexpensive," Cronin said. "But there are fixes we could do to give a significant portion of the town power during events like this that happen far too frequently."

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