The New York community hit hardest by this week's severe weather is the city of Rome in Central New York, where a confirmed tornado packing more than 130-mph winds caused devastation.
Officials said Thursday that the disaster response team is finishing its evaluation of the damage, while National Grid said power has been restored to more than 100,000 customers across eastern New York, including in portions of the greater Capital Region, which was hit by severe weather as well.
A lot of progress has been made in Rome since Tuesday, according to Mayor Jeff Lannigan, who said 71% of power had been restored by National Grid.
"We have a QR Code that people are going to be able to scan that is going to give them the most accurate locations of power outages that are still there in the city of Rome," Lanigan said.
Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente announced the state’s insurance mobile unit is now available in the Freedom Plaza from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"That unit is established by the state of New York. It helps residents that have been affected by the storm to fill out the required insurance paperwork that they have," Picente said. "It really is a great unit."
With South Rome deeply impacted, Lanigan announced extended services there at the South Rome Senior Citizen Center.
"There are people here that still can’t leave their homes, that don’t have access to food, water, toiletries, hygiene products, things like that," said Amanda Mills of the community and economic development department in the city of Rome. "It was important to us to get something on this side of town so that we could be here for the people that need it the most."
"We know at least for the next two days, we need to do something, but we know this is more of a long haul," said Cassandra Sheets, CEO of the Center for Family Life and Recovery. "Because until power starts getting restored, it’s tough for people to get good meals. So that’s what’s we’re really working on."
A curfew is still in place from 8:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. in the affected areas. Officials are steering people to the county and city websites to track the affected areas on the map.