No Power to Thousands as New Storm Approaches

As a nor'easter packing high winds bears down on Long Island, more than 30,000 customers remain without power in the Town of Oyster Bay alone.

The Long Island Power Authority reports that about 114,000 customers in Nassau remain without power as of 7 p.m. Tuesday. The storm is scheduled to hit sometime late Wednesday, packing high winds and potential coastal flooding, and continue through Thursday.

The Oyster Bay communities hardest hit by the outages remain Plainview (3,200 customers) and the three Massapequas, (5,200) but outages continue throughout the town. There are 1,700 outages in Syosset, 750 in Old Bethpage, 1,000 in Farmingdale, and about 1,200 in the Oyster Bay area. There are nearly 4,000 outages remaining in the Glen Cove area.

Frustrated residents, cold and fearful in their darkened homes, are demanding answers from the utility, but say they're not getting any:

"We have this nor'easter coming...," wrote Anthony J. DeRiggi of Plainview, who called LIPA for an update. "The woman from LIPA 'educated' me by saying 'obviously they can't work during a storm.' Wow! No kidding? Have they been working at all? Not for Plainview."

"Temperature in the house (is) down to 51 degrees," said Vikas Bhambri. "No LIPA trucks in sight."

The frustration is mounting:

"Something needs to be done, and it needs to be done now!" said Jodi Keller Campagna, who saw four LIPA trucks on her block last night.

"They restored power to about 10 houses, leaving the rest in the dark, then left at 8:30." she wrote on our Facebook page. "They have not returned since. The crews were from Texas, and told us that they were getting absolutely no direction from LIPA."

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Phone calls and a detailed email containing questions from readers to LIPA were not answered on Tuesday. LIPA says it still expects to have 90 percent of its customers back on line by Wednesday. It has made no public statement about the pending nor'easter on its website, which continues to report significant progress in the restoration effort.

Previously, LIPA said it could offer no specifics about when any particular area will have power restored.

As the new storm closes in Nassau County has decided to open three new shelters in the area beginning at 8 a.m. Wednesday. They are:

• Plainview-Old Bethpage Middle School – 121 Central Park Road, Plainview
• Farmingdale High School – 150 Lincoln Street
• Glen Cove High School – 150 Dosoris Lane
• North Shore Temple - 83 Muttontown Road, Syosset

This is a breaking story. Patch will update it and provide updates from LIPA when they respond.

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