Sandy spared much of the Upstate area from injuries and flooding, but the storm's wind gave Mohawk Valley authorities a tough battle throughout the night. Our Andrew Sorensen tells us what problems officials are still dealing with as thousands go without power.

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DOLGEVILLE, N.Y. -- It was a common story Tuesday morning in Dolgeville.

"I was just on Facebook and all of the sudden, I heard a huge crash and my dogs went crazy," Dolgeville resident Annabelle Lee said.

The sound Lee heard was her neighbor's massive pine tree smashing through a playhouse in the yard Monday night. The tree barely missed their garage, but you can only imagine what damage it might have done had it gone twenty feet the other way and hit their actual house.

"It's always been there, so to look back and see one of these huge pine trees just gone is weird," she said.

For an idea of how big the tree was, take a look at its twin.

Other trees came down all over the area, causing bigger headaches for thousands as they brought down power lines.

"It almost looks like a bomb zone went off," Hilltop Fire Chief Edwin Johnson said.

Just across the river in Oppenhiem, Johnson dealt with a dozen downed power lines overnight Monday.

"RGL, Caroga Lake, Stratford, they've all been hammered. They've been on calls non-stop, it hit pretty hard here," he said.

And he says they were still finding new downed lines into Tuesday morning. The damage was a real challenge for volunteer fire departments all over the Mohawk Valley.

"We're a small department. Man power is limited, equipment is limited," said Salisbury Volunteer FD 1st Assistant Chief Richard Nichols.

They were all hands on deck for most of the night at his station. The number of calls they took was way more than these smaller areas are used to.

"Like a quadruple in one number for the one night or even more than that," he said.

Remarkably, they've cleared many of the trees and lines without significant damage and no injuries reported, but they expect some residents could still be without power for some time to come.