Winds were fierce, seas were rough, and trees fell victim to the tropical storm dubbed Isaias that blew through Long Island on Tuesday afternoon.
The storm prompted East Hampton Village officials to declare a state of emergency Wednesday at 7 a.m. It will last five days unless otherwise suspended, according to the emergency order, and will allow village police and Public Works personnel to "act where necessary to diminish the threat of imminent danger to residents and provide adequate passage for emergency vehicles."
According to PSEG Long Island's outage map, there were hundreds of reports of lost power across the South Fork. By 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, a little over 200 customers remained without electricity between Hampton Bays and Montauk. The situation was to be more severe in Riverhead, on the North Fork, and on Shelter Island, according to data available on the map.
Around the same time, the Long Island Rail Road said on its website that service would remain suspended on the Montauk train branch "as LIRR crews continue to remove trees, utility poles, power lines and repair track and signal damage."
"We got lucky," East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said Wednesday afternoon. "Roughly 20 downed trees were cleared. There's a lot of branches around, and it will probably take four or five days to clean it all up. There are still four trees tangled in PSEG wires.” He said the town was “waiting on PSEG."
"Part of the reason we're faring pretty well is that post-Sandy, PSEG did a transmission distribution line-hardening with FEMA money," Mr. Van Scoyoc continued. "Some of the poles in town are 80 years old. They're kind of like toothpicks, really. They've put in stronger poles and changed the configuration of the wires to sort of a tighter triangle, which means they don’t have to worry about tree limbs so much."
However, with widespread outages across New York State, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday initiated a statewide investigation of utility companies, including PSEG Long Island, by the Department of Public Service.
"We know that severe weather is our new reality," the governor said in a statement. "The reckless disregard by utility companies to adequately plan for tropical storm Isaias left tens of thousands of customers in the dark, literally and figuratively. Their performance was unacceptable."
PSEG Long Island could not be reached for comment by press time Wednesday.
In Sag Harbor, the storm flipped a 20-foot moored boat and brought down many large trees. In Orient, wind speeds as high as 64 miles per hour were recorded, according to the National Weather Service.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said on Twitter that the county's 311 help line received more than 650 calls during the storm, and that public works crews found 250 downed trees on county roads alone.
For those who are wondering, Isaias, said to be a Spanish version of the Hebrew name Isaiah, is pronounced "ee-sah-EE-ahs."
With reporting by Jamie Bufalino
