By Jacquie Rath
Many village residents were without electrical power for a good part of the uncomfortably hot weekend as a result of the storm's fury. Four separate weather-related incidents in RVC caused power blackouts.
The first occurred on Friday at 2:30 p.m., when a tree branch fell on a power line on Morris Avenue, north of Hamilton Street, cutting power to 600 to 700 residences of the northwest corner of the village, near Molloy College. Crews repaired the damage quickly, and service was restored by 5 p.m.
Two hours later, lightning struck a cable on Morris Avenue, north of Lakeview Avenue. The strike affected the same supply line, and homes in the area were once again left without power. According to village spokesman Jeff Kluewer, power was restored to 80 percent of the affected residents by midnight on Friday. The remaining 20 percent were without power until around 12:30 p.m. the following day due to secondary damage that needed repair.
Additionally, between 7 and 8 p.m. on Friday evening there was a manhole fire, which resulted from flooding on South Park Avenue between Merrick Road and Lincoln Avenue. An underground transformer was partially submerged, sparking the fire, which resulted in outages for 10 to 12 businesses in the immediate area. According to Kluewer, electric customers in the affected area remained without power until approximately 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
"No storm water system is designed to take on that much water at once," said Village Administrator Ron Wasson. "The Electric Department really worked hard to make repairs, and the [Department of Power and Water] was great - they were right out there as well."
Then, a few hours after the transformer on South Park Avenue was repaired on Saturday, a different component of the transformer failed. The businesses that were affected by the initial flooding and fire lost power once again. Service was restored to the area by 6 p.m.
"We definitely lost some business [as a result of the outages]," said Candice Wise, a stylist at Technicolors salon, at 27 S. Park Ave. "One stylist had to go to a girl's house to do her hair and makeup. We lost our computer systems, and there was no way to see what appointments we had coming in."
"What are you going to do? That was a natural disaster," said Nick Katsiabakis, owner of Park Avenue Cafe, at 41 S. Park Ave. "The police and fire departments did the best they could. I was lucky to have my power back on Saturday. The mayor came out, too, and I appreciate that."
Tiffany Razzano also contributed to this story.
