Five Towns recovers from weekend's superstorm

Last Saturday's nor'easter, which featured heavy rainfall and tropical-storm-force winds, devastated parts of the Five Towns, toppling hundreds of trees and leaving thousands of residents without power. Many described it as one of the worst natural disaster to ever strike the area.
Last Sunday morning, more than 6,000 Long Island Power Authority customers across the Five Towns were without power. On Tuesday, more than 3,000 were still in the dark.
Lawrence Village Administrator David Smollett estimated that the damage across the village, including private property, was in the multi-million-dollar range. Lawrence had more than 100 downed trees, and on Monday there were still more than 800 homes without power in Lawrence and North Lawrence. Smollett said he was grateful that the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department provided equipment that helped the village light the streets while power
was out.
"We're in a disaster mode here," said Smollett, who hired private contractors to remove trees but did not expect all the damage to be cleaned up until this weekend. "The impact far surpasses the hurricanes we've had."

Gila Roslyn, who lives on Narragansett Avenue in Lawrence, said her home did not lose power over the weekend, but on Monday evening the lights went out when a fuse blew while a LIPA crew was working on a nearby street. On Sunday, Roslyn and her husband had stocked a refrigerator full of groceries they had bought in preparation for Passover, and she was worried that much of the food would spoil without power. "It's really frustrating," said Roslyn, who also lost a cherry tree in her backyard. "I have never seen anything like this."
Cedarhurst Mayor Andrew Parise said that 30 trees in his village were either down or split and crews were working around the clock to clean up the damage. It included two trees that fell in front of Village Hall and five that were damaged in Cedarhurst Park. Parise emphasized that many of the trees were entangled in wires and that only LIPA was authorized to clear them away. Two light poles also came down in Parking Field 1, near Gourmet Glatt Emporium and CVS Pharmacy.
"I've never seen it that bad here," Parise said of the storm and its aftermath.
Atlantic Beach Mayor Stephen Mahler said that since his village was nothing more than a sandbar as recently as the late 1920s, there are considerably fewer trees there, and so there was much less damage. The seaside community still suffered considerable power outages, however, with all customers losing electricity at one point, according to LIPA. On Monday, about half of Atlantic Beach LIPA customers were still without power, including Village Hall, which forced the court system to close. There was also beach erosion, but Mahler added that thanks to how well the jetties held up, there was less damage than in other areas of the Long Beach barrier island.
"Fortunately we have very wide beaches and have good jetties, so [our beaches] are protected more than Long Beach," Mahler said. "Driving around, I was quite happy that there wasn't more flooding."
At the height of the storm on Saturday night, the Five Towns Auxiliary Police Unit had eight officers and five police cars patrolling the area, prepared to respond to emergencies. Lt. Danny Gluck, commanding officer of the Auxiliary Police Unit, said the numerous downed trees that hit utility poles made for hazardous driving, with eight accidents occurring Saturday night on Peninsula Boulevard alone. Gluck said that given the treacherous conditions, it was a minor miracle that there were no serious injuries.
"In all my years working for the police department, I have never seen anything like that," said Gluck. "It was like World War III out there."
The storm also caused headaches for local Long Island Rail Road riders, with service halted on the Far Rockaway branch on Saturday, the result of downed power lines near the Gibson station. Service was suspended again for several hours the following day when a train was disabled just east of the Valley Stream station because of equipment problems, stranding around 30 passengers for nearly two hours.
Joanne Pignatelli-O'Neill, who lives on Gibson Boulevard, close to the LIRR station, said that at about 11:20 a.m. on Saturday, she heard a loud explosion and saw a big fireball across the street. She then heard a second explosion, and, while on the phone with the fire department, a third.
"I felt the heat from those explosions and I was inside my house," said Pignatelli-O'Neill. "After that, flames were arcing on the wires and traveled down the block towards Peninsula [Boulevard]. I was afraid that it was going to ignite the houses that back up against the railroad."

STORM UPDATE: 

March 18, 9:00AM: As a result of this past weekend's severe weather event, 263,000 customers lost power. Approximately 260,650 customers have now been restored. All of Suffolk County and Nassau County north of the Long Island Expressway have been returned to normal operating status. More than 2,200 linemen and 1,000 support personnel continue to work around the clock to complete restoration efforts. It is expected that all remaining storm related outages will be restored throughout Thursday. Thank you for your patience.

To report a new outage please call 1-800-490-0075.

Andrew Hackmack contributed to this story. Comments about it? Nassaueditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 201.