Verizon building causing power outages in Lynbrook

Many business owners near Merrick Road in Lynbrook have complained about power outages in the area that were caused by the Verizon services communication building on Washington Avenue.

“It’s disruptive to business,” said Jeffrey Greenfield, a partner at the NGL Insurance Group at 112 Merrick Road, of the outages. “We’re in the customer service business. Our computers went down, our phones went down. It takes time to get reestablished, so virtually every time it goes down it puts us out of business.”

Requests for comment from Verizon were not returned as of press time.

Greenfield said the outages have happened a few times in the past couple of months and have halted business. He noted, however, that they had not lasted longer than a few minutes at a time, but were still disruptive.

Jeremy Walsh, a spokesman for the Public Service Enterprise Group of Long Island, confirmed that the issues were being addressed outside the building, which is at 7 Washington Avenue.

“An electrical problem arose recently at a Verizon location in Lynbrook,” he said. “Although the cause of the problem is unrelated to any power or service provided by PSEG Long Island, some of our equipment was damaged. We have repaired our equipment and are in constant contact with Verizon as they complete work on a solution to the issue. “

For the past three weeks, workers have continued to try to repair the issue, which stems from a direct current going through water supply lines underground. Verizon and PSEG are working in conjunction to fix the problem, which has also affected residences and a nearby firehouse.

Greenfield, who is a trustee for the Long Island Power Authority, said the problems have occurred during the day and at night. He added that Verizon was taken off the electrical grid by PSEG and is working off of generated power, but Walsh did not confirm that.

Craig Shapiro, who works at Global Facilities Insurance Inc., at 146 Merrick Road, said the outings have been an “inconvenience.”

“There’s an unknown because your whole building goes off so the servers go down, how does it damage those systems?” he asked. “That’s a complete unknown, but what did it affect? Is it going to destroy the life expectancy of this equipment? I have no idea.”