CHENANGO COUNTY – Upwards of nearly 5,000 individual NYSEG electric utility customers were again without power late Sunday night into Monday morning as NYSEG linemen scrambled to restore electricity en masse to county residents for the second time in less than a week.

Last week, severe thunderstorms knocked out power to more than 36,000 customers on Saturday. While an effort to restore service put many customers back online, approximately 11,500 customers – primarily in rural communities within Chenango and Madison county – were in the dark until Wednesday.

Last week's power outage that occurred during a period of high temperatures and humidity prompted NYSEG to distribute water and dry ice to customers in some of the hardest-hit communities including Norwich.