Melanie Lekocevic is reporting for Columbia-Greene Media thousands of residents in Greene and Columbia counties were without power Fri., Nov. 1, as the result of powerful winds and a rainstorm overnight. As of mid-day, more than 4,500 in Greene County were still in the dark. The hardest hit areas were Cairo and Catskill; Coxsackie village, Durham, New Baltimore and Hunter, were all significantly impacted, as well, according to John Maserjian, spokesman for Central Hudson. In the areas of Columbia County served by Central Hudson, there were outages reported in Ancram and in Gallatin. "The estimated restoration times for power outages in Columbia and Greene counties are being reevaluated and have been extended to the late afternoon and evening today, and possibly overnight for some locations," Maserjian said. He said more substantial repairs will be needed to restore service, requiring more time than originally anticipated. With high winds in the forecast, there may be more outages coming. There were small numbers of outages scattered around Columbia County in National Grid’s service area, including locations in Gallatin, Stuyvesant, Taghkanic, Chatham, Clermont and Kinderhook. In most of those cases, power is expected to be restored by Friday afternoon, according to National Grid. Read the full story at HudsonValley360 [dot] com.