Another heat wave was rolling into the New York tristate region Sunday as crews worked to restore power to over 300,000 residents and businesses who were still without power after last week’s tropical storm. The race to restore electricity for desperately needed air conditioners, refrigerators, well pumps and other equipment as another work week approached was in full swing under sunny skies as thousands of power company workers tried to restore energy before temperatures lurch toward 90 degrees on Monday. The power restoration was made more urgent by the pandemic that has turned homes into work places for many. The National Weather Service issued a heat alert Sunday, saying temperatures from noon Monday until 8 p.m.

Con Edison is offering reimbursement of more than $500 worth of food and medication for customers who lost power for more than 48 hours due to Tropical Storm Isaias. About 54,500 Con Ed customers in New York City and Westchester County were still without electricity Sunday morning, five days after Isaias toppled trees and power lines across the tri-state area. Residents can file a claim of up to $540 for spoiled food. For claims up to $235, an itemized list of spoiled items must be provided. A claim for food above $235 must also include proof of loss, such as a store receipt, credit card receipt or photos of the spoiled items. Medication that was spoiled due to a lack of refrigeration can also be claimed separately from the $540 food maximum.

Evictions are still on hold in New York courts as housing advocates worry about the fate of an estimated 14,000 renters who faced eviction before the state’s COVID-19 emergency. Courts spokeswoman Lucian Chalfen said Friday that the state’s stay of evictions is still in effect through a March 16 order signed by the state’s chief administrative judge. The announcement comes as housing advocates including The Legal Aid Society hope New York courts will heed Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call for “no evictions” amid the pandemic. This week, Cuomo said a new state law makes clear that no evictions are allowed while New York is in a pandemic. “I signed the law, and the law is clear,” Cuomo said in a Thursday conference call with reporters. “Until when? Until I say COVID is over.

City Councilman Paul Vallone credits the controversial malaria drug hydroxychloroquine with saving his life as he battled the coronavirus earlier this year. Vallone, a Democrat representing Queens, told the New York Post that the drug “worked for me” when he was battling a bad case of the virus back in March. “I couldn’t breathe, very weak, couldn’t get out of bed,” Vallone told the paper. “My doctor prescribed it. My pharmacy had it.

More than 520,000 homes and businesses in the New York tri-state area were still without electricity Saturday as utilities worked to get the lights on four days after Tropical Storm Isaias. Tuesday’s storm dealt the region a surprisingly sharp blow, killing at least one person, downing trees, halting commuter trains and initially knocking out power to more than 2.5 million customers. A customer can be a single home or a skyscraper, sometimes even an entire apartment complex. “We understand the frustration,” Con Edison President Tim Cawley said at a virtual news briefing Saturday afternoon as 71,000 of the utility’s customers in New York City and its northern suburbs remained out of power, down from 300,000 Tuesday.

A power outage cast darkness across large swaths of Manhattan early Friday, as tens of thousands of people in other parts of New York City were still without electricity in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Isaias. A spokesperson for Consolidated Edison said Friday’s blackout started at 5:13 a.m. in Harlem, the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side and affected about 180,000 customers. The outage lasted about a half-hour, he said. Another 5,000 customers lost power in a separate outage in Queens. The cause of Friday’s outages wasn’t immediately known. Subway service on several lines was affected. Crews have been working around the clock to restore power across the city after the tropical storm battered the East Coast earlier this week.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told New Yorkers Thursday they don’t need to buy a new car. “The future of New York City is less about the car,” de Blasio said. “I’m never going to own a car again.” De Blasio — who is chauffeured around New York City in a tax dollar-funded SUV — advised New Yorkers Thursday not to fear the subways amid the global novel coronavirus pandemic. “My advice to New Yorkers is, ‘Do not buy a car,” de Blasio said. “Cars are the past, the future is going to be mass transit, biking, walking.” READ MORE: NY1

A search is currently underway in the Catskills for two missing hikers. The group went missing in the Rock Hill area, after they had gone on a hike at the “Katrina Falls” hiking trails. There is a massive response from Hatzolah as well as numerous fire departments and other local agencies. Additional information will be published when it becomes available. JUST ANOTHER REASON TO SUPPORT THE ONGOING CATSKILLS HATZOLAH FUNDRAISER!
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New York City opened new traveler checkpoints Thursday to register visitors and residents returning from nearly three dozen states who are required to quarantine for 14 days — an initiative that drew swift criticism from privacy advocates. The checkpoints, targeting busy entry points like Penn Station, are more of an awareness campaign than a blockade, intended to preserve the city’s progress reducing its COVID-19 infection rate and forestall a second wave as the coronavirus ravages other states. Authorities said this week a fifth of all new coronavirus cases in New York City have been from travelers entering the city from other states.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he won’t bend over backwards to lure back rich New Yorkers who have fled the city during the coronavirus pandemic, taking a shot at Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his frequent chats with pals in the Hamptons. Cuomo has been pleading with rich city dwellers who left the city for second homes at the height of the pandemic to come back. And he argues that raising their taxes, an idea that now has support in both the Assembly and state Senate, would make matters worse. “I literally talk to people all day long who are in their Hamptons house who also lived here, or in their Hudson Valley house or in their Connecticut weekend house, and I say, ‘You gotta come back, when are you coming back?'” he said on Monday, Gothamist reported.