SKANEATELES, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — The high winds and dangerously cold weather we saw on Friday caused thousands of people to lose their power and heat. Some of those outages happening in Skaneateles, where the village maintains its own electric services for neighbors there.

“I got home expecting it to be on but it wasn’t, and that would’ve been maybe 6:30,” said Michael Olbrych, who lives in Skaneateles.

Olbrych says he walked into a dark apartment on Friday night.

“I checked everything and whatever. It wasn’t cold yet, because it’s a one-bedroom apartment,” said Olbrych.

Olbrych’s apartment is located on Jordan Street in Skaneateles. After finding out he had no power and checking things around his apartment, Olbrych left. He quickly realized he was not alone.

“Right to the right of me, there’s like a CVS and a Kinney and you go further, and everything was out,” said Olbrych.

The power finally came back on for Olbrych around 10:30 pm on Friday. But not for long.

“It went out again today,” said Olbrych.

Olbrych says he lost power for a second time Saturday morning around 9:00, and it didn’t come back on until a few hours later. But that wasn’t the case for others.

“We actually came to Mirbeau to pick up some nail polish and when we got there it was cold inside and everybody was wearing coats and the lights were off,” said Brenda Botbyl-Velez, of Manlius.

Botbyl-Velez was visiting Skaneateles for the day with her husband and son. She says they stopped at the Mirbeau Inn & Spa around 1:00 pm on Saturday. They were planning to have lunch there.

“And then all of a sudden the lights came on. It was probably about 1:30, but they decided to stay closed because it was just too cold. They couldn’t warm up the building,” said Botbyl-Velez.

NewsChannel 9 reached out to the Mirbeau Inn & Spa in Skaneateles. They would not comment.

NewsChannel 9 also reached out to the Village of Skaneateles, but no one picked up. The village posted on its website an update at 12:14 pm the following:

2/4 Power Outage

12:14 pm update:

“All hands are on deck” as retired Line Leader Alan Abbott and Solvay Electric have joined the effort to once again restore electricity in the Village. The Sherwood is currently running on generator power in an effort to reduce the load on the circuit. 

The Village continues to ask that residents make an effort to ascertain what electricity is necessary and turn off anything that isn’t. This would include outdoor Christmas lights and the lights on in empty rooms. This works similarly to a breaker in your home. If you overload the circuit, the breaker flips. The breaker will continue to flip until the load is reduced. 

Thank you once again for your patience and your diligence in helping.

***

We are aware of another power outage. We are mobilizing and will work as fast as we can to restore power. Please refrain from calling and asking for an ETA as it takes away from resources working on the issue.

We kindly ask that all Village residents do their best to turn off any non-essential electricity at this time in order to preserve resources.

Thank you so much for your patience, we know how difficult this situation is for our residents.”

Click here for updates from the Village of Skaneateles.