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Several thousand power outages reported after strong winds on Saturday

A major water main break on the west side of Rochester Wed. evening caused flooding and forced a boil water advisory. This photo is on Troup St., not far from the break that happened on Favor St. on the southwest side of the city.
Bryan Agnello
/
WXXI News
A major water main break on the west side of Rochester Wed. evening caused flooding and forced a boil water advisory. This photo is on Troup St., not far from the break that happened on Favor St. on the southwest side of the city.

Several thousand utility customers were left without power for a time on Saturday after strong winds, gusting more than 50 mph at times, swept through Western NY and the Finger Lakes.

But just after 2 p.m., the National Weather Service canceled the High Wind Warning for Monroe and nearby counties and also canceled the Wind Advisory that had been in effect in other counties in the region.

But power outages persisted in the early afternoon. More than 3,500 RG&E customers had lost power in Monroe County and nearly 3,000 in Ontario County.

Rochester Gas & Electric said that it is keeping its pre-staged resources in place across the region in order to have line and tree crews ready to respond. As always, the utility reminds you to stay away from any downed power lines, and if you see any, report them to 1-800-743-1701.

As of 1:45 p.m. Saturday afternoon, RG&E reported more than 6,300 customers without power in Monroe County, and more than 3,200 outages in Ontario County. But later in the afternoon, that was down to just over 1,000 outages in Monroe County and just a handful in Ontario County.

The high winds forced a change in the Saturday schedule for Roc Holiday Village in downtown Rochester. It will open later on Saturday than originally planned. It will open at 4 p.m.

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Cozy Winter Igloo and Igloo Inn reservations prior to 4 p.m. will be refunded. Roc Holiday Village is personally notifying all igloo reservation customers.

The forecast will be quite changeable throughout the weekend, with milder temperatures early in the day on Saturday, rising to the low 50s by late morning with some rain, then falling to around 40 degrees for the rest of the day. Saturday night, the forecast calls for some rain and snow showers with a low in the 20s, and Sunday should see sunny skies, with a high near 40.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.