Saturday Storm Leads to Power Outages, Some Last Through Monday

From falling debris to floodwaters, Long Island was hit hard by this weekend's "severe weather event," as LIPA called it.

"Long Island experienced a severe weather event with near hurricane force winds on March 13, with 254,000 customers effected, " read a statement posted on LIPA's Storm Center Web page at 3:25 p.m. Monday. 

By Monday at 11 a.m., power was restored to approximately 77% of those affected customers, according to LIPA and the utility company planned to continue the work fervently. "Additional crews have been brought in from off of Long Island to assist in our restoration efforts. Due to the extreme nature of the damage we expect most customers will be restored by late Monday evening," read the statement.

In Huntington Bay, however,  some residents were still without power in mid-afternoon according to Mayor Herb Morrow.

"We still have some outages on East Shore Road and in the Wincoma section," Mayor Morrow said at 1:40 p.m. In addition to power outages, he said the Nathan Hale Beach Association sustained significant damage to it deck, pier and building. "There may be damage in the sea wall, too," he said. By 6:15 pm the power in all village homes save two was restored.

In Lloyd Harbor, 62 homes were still without power by 6:15 p.m. Monday as were 77 customers in Huntington Village.

For those without power, there wasn't much to do but wait as manpower was stretched thin and more outages occurred Monday.

LIPA officials said they expect power to be restored to most residents by Wednesday evening, but it could take even longer for the approximately 15,000 people who called in outages today.

"Broken branches are hanging on wires and those wires are coming down," said Vanessa Baird-Streeter, a LIPA spokeswoman, of what's causing the new outages.  "It also doesn't help with the weather we
have been getting as far as restoring power."

When residents attempted to reach LIPA on Saturday to report outages, many were told that no one was available to speak with them and to call back later.

"Over the course of the day, we had 100,000 calls and we have don't have 100,000 representatives," Baird-Streeter said.  "We understand people's frustration. They want to speak with someone."

LIPA currently has about 2,000 crews, with help from workers in Canada, Indiana and Pennsylvania, all attempting to get the lights back on in Long Island homes, Baird-Streeter said.

Amid complaints that LIPA should have been more prepared to deal with the storm's aftermath, Baird-Streeter said they never expected the storm to be as devastating as it was.

"When there's a hurricane coming, you know four to five days in advance and you make some preparations, but being out of hurricane season, this was not forecasted as that," she said.  "But there were hurricane force winds and with the saturated grounds, it's easy for trees to be uprooted."

In the meantime, for those still living in the dark, Baird-Streeter suggested that people who call LIPA's outage line follow all of the prompts to leave a callback number so they can be notified when power is expected to be restored.  Also, if you see a neighbor's lights go on and yours don't, call LIPA because there may be an additional problem, Baird-Streeter said.

"We are asking people to be as patient as possible," she said.

Some LIRR trains were delayed Monday morning due to flooding at an East River crossing. However, as of 6:43 p.m. Monday, no delays were expected on the Port Jefferson line, according to the MTA.

Customers are advised to check the LIRR website at http://www.mta.info/ for the latest updates. The LIRR also will be issuing email alerts and providing the latest service related information to the news media and to traffic reporting agencies.