By:JOSEPH KELLARD
A Honda barreled through the triangle area, at Long Beach Road, Davison and Lincoln Avenues, at about 6 a.m. last Sunday and crashed into a traffic light control box before going up in flames.
At press time, Fourth Precinct police were unable to provide the Herald with information about the accident or about who drove the car, but according to the Oceanside Fire Department, the car landed on the power lines beneath the control box that was knocked over.
"We hit the burning car with dry-powder extinguishers because we were afraid that the power was still on," Bob Bettes, chief of the OFD, told the Herald. "We had to wait about 45 minutes for LIPA to come and cut the power to finish extinguishing the fire."
The traffic lights were out in the area throughout the morning and early afternoon on Sunday, and police officers were on the streets directing traffic.
The triangle has been the scene of several such accidents in recent years that have caused extensive damage. One such accident, in May 2001, involved a car heading south on Long Beach Road that plowed into and destroyed a Nassau County Police booth. The damage was so massive that the booth had to be removed, and another one has since been built in a Town of Hempstead parking lot on Davison Avenue across from the Oceanside Library.
The triangle is owned by Nassau County and maintained by the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce, and they are collaborated to renovate the area with a nautical motif. The triangle will sport a 20-foot lighthouse, a fishing-boat planter, and pilings and fish netting made of reinforced steel cables that will act as guardrails to protect the property from erratic drivers.
The county has been delayed in getting the construction started on the project, but Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback told the Herald that ground may be broken in the next six weeks.
