West Webster Responds to Record Setting Storm
 
By Lieutenant William Lang
March 16, 2017
 

On March 8th, 2017 a low pressure system moving in from the west brought one of the strongest gusts of wind in recorded history for the Rochester area.

At approximately 1:35 PM a gust of 81 MPH was recorded at the Greater Rochester International Airport. The winds continued to gust between 50-60 MPH in the hours that followed. These winds were equivalent to Hurricane Strength winds.

Some statistics from the day:
* West Webster responded to more than 120 calls in the first 10 hours of the storm.
* West Webster responded to approximately 200 calls in 24 hours.
* The Monroe County 911 Center had more than 11,000 911 calls during the initial storm. On an average day the center receives approximately 3,000-4,000 calls.
* Second busiest day in the history of the Monroe County 911 Center. (1991 Ice Storm being the busiest)
* RGE reported outages to more than 100,000 customers in Monroe County alone.

West Webster responded to numerous calls that included Dangerous conditions, trees down on top of houses, wires down, wires burning, motor vehicle crashes, vehicles with live power lines on top of them and assisting citizens without power.

The pictures that follow were taken the day after the storm by FF Dave Crouch.