Community Corner

Severe Weather Leaves Many in Port Without Power

Long Island Power Authority is reporting close to 600 power outages in the Port Washington area as of 6 p.m.

Severe weather this afternoon is still affecting Port Washington and its surrounding areas. As of 6 p.m., Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) was reporting more than 20,000 outages across Long Island and close to 600 in Port Washington.

"We had about 560 outages [in the Port Washington area]," LIPA spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter said. "Due to severe thunderstorm activity, we are currently experiencing outages on Long Island, primarily in the Town of North Hempstead. We have held over crews and are adding additional manpower to address the outages. We have crews assessing the damage done by trees for downed power lines."

Port Washington North seems to have been hit the hardest with 417 outages out of 1,511 LIPA customers being reported as of 6 p.m. In Port Washington 143 outages were reported, followed by 42 in Sands Point and 34 in Flower Hill. No outages are being reported in Baxter Estates or Manorhaven as of 6 p.m.

Service has been suspended on most of the Port Washington LIRR Branch due to numerous trees falling on the tracks and weather-related signal problems. LIRR officials said that the best alternate route for Plandome and Port Washington Station customers is to take the LIRR to Mineola and then take the N-23 bus to their destination.

Find out what's happening in Port Washingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Areas surrounding Port Washington, such as Great Neck (2,857 outages), Roslyn Heights (2,175), Kings Point (1,552), East Hills (1,391), Great Neck Estates (1,341), Kensington (945), Manhasset (652) and Pladome (131),were hit much harder by the storm.

Baird-Streeter said that at the high point there were 36,000 outages on Long Island and that in a short amount of time they are already down to less than 22,000.

"More than 10,000 outages have been restored in a pretty short time frame," she said. "A good thing is that we don't see many poles down, we see more wires down."

Baird-Streeter said that power should be restored by late tonight or early tomorrow.

"A good majority of outages will be restored by midnight tonight but there are some that will have to be restored by tomorrow," Baird-Streeter said. "We have all hands on deck to be able to assist with the restoration process."

Find out what's happening in Port Washingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.


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