Transformer, cable caused Rockville Centre blackout

More than 50 percent of Rockville Centre’s Electric Department customers lost service for nearly two hours on May 29 when the control power transformer at the Maple Avenue power plant failed.

In addition to the 5,159 customers who lost power due to the transformer failure just before 11 a.m., another 523 lost service due to an unrelated cable failure at Grand and Park avenues.

According to village spokesman Jeff Kluewer, power was restored to 2,292 customers affected by the transformer failure before 1 p.m., and nearly all regained power by just after 3 p.m., though 37 customers in two buildings, at 114 North Park Ave. and 55 Clinton Road, did not get electricity back until 11 p.m.

Larry Siegel, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said that the outage affected much of the downtown retail area of the village. It also spread over areas including Centre Avenue, Village Avenue, Sunrise Highway, Maple Avenue and parts of Long Beach Road. Both the King Kullen supermarket on Sunrise Highway and the Associated grocery store on North Long Beach Road were affected.

“Our incident command structure worked flawlessly during this emergency,” said Village Administrator Keith Spadaro. “Following our [Federal Emergency Management Agency] training, all departments coordinated with each other, and the village coordinated with the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management to manage and control the outage and its consequences.”

The blackout reached north toward Mercy Medical Center, which did not lose power, according to a spokesman, Mel Granick, but it did affect South Nassau Communities Hospital, which was running on its backup generator, according to spokesman Damian Becker.

“Three engines at the power plant were put into service [May 30],” Kluewer said, “and put out about 12 megawatts of power.”

The village sent emergency texts, emails and phone calls using its Swift 911 program. “There is a village wide power outage. The Rockville Centre Electric Department is working to restore power as quickly as possible,” the email read. “We will update with further information. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.”