Ulster County is putting itself back together after major thunderstorms tore through Wednesday night, which prompted officials to declare a state of emergency.

Crews worked hard through Thursday to clean the debris from houses that were damaged.

Power lines were also downed, which left about 15,000 households without electricity. County Executive Pat Ryan says that is about 40,000 people without electricity.

"I, honestly in my lifetime, I've never seen anything like it," said resident Brian Cable, who was home at the time of the storm. "And we're inside, trying to look out the windows. You couldn't even see a foot out the window. It was that bad. It was raining so hard, and hail and the wind... this is not normal."

"The City of Kingston was really ground zero for where it hit, which is our biggest city in the county, unfortunately. So, severe damage to homes, to vehicles. We had over 300 power line points down. We had almost 40,000 residents without power last night, and we're working, of course, to get that cleaned up," Ryan explained.

The countywide state of emergency remains in effect until 8 a.m. Friday.