Central Hudson Restores Service to Nearly 100,000 Customers in Two Days Utility Launches Day 3 of Massive Restoration Effort

As of early Tuesday morning, approximately 59,000 Central Hudson homes and businesses remain without electricity, after a powerful snowstorm struck the region and interrupted service to about 156,000 customers in total on Saturday. Across the Northeast, about 2 million customers are still without power, down from 3 million in the wake of the unusual October Noreaster. We have completed hundreds of repairs but as we make them, we find additional cases of trouble in local neighborhoods. The damage from this storm is very widespread, and in many locations we are making repairs that restore service for only small numbers of customers often just a single customer, said Central Hudson President James P. Laurito, who estimated that 1,700 repairs remain. That is both labor- and time-intensive, and the only way to make progress is to keep up our methodical push out along distribution lines into local communities, on to neighborhood streets and, finally, to individual homes. As of Tuesday morning, approximately 59,000 customers remain without electricity, concentrated largely in Dutchess (32,600), Orange (16,800), Putnam (2,600) and Ulster (6,000) counties. We will hit it hard again today, as we re-deploy our small army of 500 line and tree-trimming crews into the field, backing them up with hundreds of employees who are providing logistical support such as on-site vehicle fueling and meals, Laurito said. Now that weve restored service in some northern counties, we will redirect those resources into the southern part of the territory. Despite the rising number of identified repairs, our overall goal remains to get the lights back on for virtually everyone by Wednesday night, said Laurito. Laurito urged residents to take advantage of warming centers and shelters; to stay away from downed lines and trees that might be hiding energized wires; and to never heat their home with an appliance that was not designed for heating purposes. He also said the utility will be distributing dry ice and bottled water at the following locations, beginning at 2:00 p.m. today: Dutchess County Home Depot Stanford Fire House Putnam County North Highlands Fire Dept Orange County Dan Leghorn Fire House Rt. 9, Across from Marist 6096 Rt 82 504 Fishkill Rd 426 South Plank Rd Poughkepsie Stanfordville Cold Spring Newburgh

Customers should call Central Hudsons PowerLine at (845) 452-2700 or 1-800-527-2714 to report downed lines and/or their power condition, and they are encouraged to use the automated

reporting system. Customers with access to a computer may also report their power condition via the utilitys website, www.CentralHudson.com, by using the StormCentral function. Information regarding service restoration estimates, as it becomes available, as well as shelters, can be obtained by phone and on-line, and updates are posted on Facebook and Twitter. A mobile version of the utilitys website, including StormCentral, can be accessed by web-enabled cell phones and mobile devices at http://mobile.CentralHudson.com. Free Central Hudson mobile applications for Android-based and Apple devices are also available by logging onto www.CentralHudson.com/mobileapp.