OLEAN, NY - A lot of people in the Southern Tier still don't have power, four days after last week's snow storm.
National Grid says it’s been working around the clock to restore power to areas of the Southern Tier, which the utility company says are the final areas still in need of power.
We found a crew on Brown Road in Great Valley, Cattaraugus County - a resident told us off camera that one of his neighbors went to stay with family in Rochester while her power was off.
2 On Your Side talked by phone to a spokesperson from National Grid about how progress is going.
National Grid spokesperson, Steve Brady told 2 on Your Side, “We did pick up some new outages this morning, some of which would’ve been related to the weather other that weren’t, but we got just about every crew in the division down in that southern region doing work."
National Grid says it contracted with a company from Michigan to repair power lines - many of which are in remote areas.
“The most common denominator has been the access issue when you get down into that Southern Tier area, particularly Cattaraugus and Allegany. A lot of our lines don’t follow along the roads and therefore that can be a little bit more difficult to access,” Brady said.
National Grid says it has more than 300 people working around the clock to restore power and many are traveling long distances to do so.
“It’s a lot of individual home issues or a transformer that might only serve four or five customers but you still have to send a crew there and sometimes these jobs are miles and miles apart,” Brady said.
From thousands of power outages across Western New York to about 600 in the Southern Tier, National Grid says all the outages related to the storm should be taken care of by Monday evening.