Power restored to thousands in East End

Thousands of residents in the East End found themselves without power midday Wednesday.

Around 11:20 a.m, roughly 3,220 customers in Long Beach and Lido Beach lost power, according to Long Island Power Authority spokesperson Mark Gross. Power was restored to 2,800 customers within an hour, he said, and LIPA was able to restore power to the remaining households within the following hour.

An underground cable fault between Roosevelt and Maple Boulevards caused the outage, Gross said. The cause was not determined until late afternoon, hours after the incident. Because the outage was underground, the investigation was more complicated than a common, above-ground incident, he said

Long Beach Fire Chief Rich Corbett said that he found out about the outage via phone calls from residents. The fire department, Long Beach Police Department and city officials reported the outage to LIPA. No fire services were disrupted in the outage, according to Corbett.

Within the affected area, some traffic lights on Park Avenue were out, said Corbett, and auxiliary police officers were directing traffic until those lights were restored. During the outage, Corbett cautioned drivers to remain observant and drive slowly when approaching those lights.

“If there is ever a need, we want to go and help out as best we can,” said Corbett.

Many of the households in the area remain dark with or without power, as around 30 percent of Long Beach residents remain displaced from Hurricane Sandy, according to Corbett.