East Meadow cleans up after vicious nor’easter

Samantha Tino heard a thud as she worked on the computer in her bedroom early Saturday evening. The house shook slightly. Given the torrential downpours and strong winds pummeling the area, she ignored it.
   
“I thought it was thunder and lightning,” said Tino, a journalism student at Nassau Community College who lives with her family on Maple Lane in East Meadow.
   
She soon realized that a neighbor’s massive tree had made an uninvited entrance into her backyard. It crashed through two fences, over a pool deck and jacuzzi and landing just inches from her bedroom window. Though a barbecue and a glass table were destroyed, the Tinos were grateful to escape injury and the destruction of their home.
   
“We got away lucky,” said Paul Tino, Samantha’s father. “If there is a positive to come out of it, that’s it.”
   
The Tinos were among many East Meadow and Salisbury residents who were impacted by last weekend’s nor’easter, which hammered the region with a combination of tropical-stormlike winds and relentless rain.

Power struggle
   
The Long Island Power Authority reported nearly 1,000 residents in the East Meadow area without power on Sunday. As of press time on Tuesday, LIPA reported a total of 450 outages in East Meadow and 82 in Salisbury.

LIPA President Kevin Law described last Saturday’s nor’easter as “one of the biggest weather events in Long Island history.” According to Law, 253,000 customers lost electricity in the storm, but as of Monday, 70 percent, or 189,000, had power restored. He noted that the other 64,000 customers were in Hempstead, Babylon, Islip and on the south shore of Oyster Bay.
  
Of the 85 schools that lost power, Law added, 71 had had it restored. He said he anticipated that all homes, businesses and schools would have power by Wednesday night.