Some will insist Chenango County dodged a bullet, while others will claim emergency officials and the media sensationalized the potential dangers of “superstorm” Sandy, which made landfall along the New Jersey coastline at approximately 8 p.m. Monday. Either way, no one can deny the billions of dollars in damage caused by the unique storm system along the east coast – particularly in New Jersey and New York City – despite the fact that municipalities up and down the Route 12 corridor escaped relatively unscathed.

According to the Chenango County Bureau of Fire and Emergency Management, the county was simply not subjected with the strong wind gusts associated elsewhere with Hurricane Sandy, while other parts of the state were pummeled by excessive rainfall, damaging winds and widespread power outages. According to nyseg.com’s Outage Central, there are approximately 160 Chenango County residents currently without power (as of press time), while other areas – namely Westchester, Sullivan and Putnam counties – are reporting tens of thousands without electricity. At times during last night’s storm, upwards of 300 were without power across the county, significantly less than expected, said emergency officials.

“We saw some pretty good peak wind gusts, although the part we were more concerned about were the sustained winds,” said City of Norwich Emergency Management Officer A. Wesley Jones. “[Sandy] didn’t quite reach this far north. Go south 100 miles from here, or less, 75 miles from here, and it’s a totally different story; Sullivan County suffered major damage.”