Seattle City Light lineworkers helping restore power in Long Island, NY, Nov. 9.
Repair crews from Seattle City Light and Ontario, Canada’s Horizon Electric have restored service to all customers in the Centre Island area of Long Island as part of the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort and City Light’s crews were preparing to start work in Muttontown.
City Light’s crews have been busy, replacing damaged utility poles, cross arms and transformers, and re-hanging power lines.
“Trees are down all over the place,” Crew Supervisor Kevin McClaskey said. City Light’s crews could have two or three days of work in Muttontown before all those customers are back in service.
City Light crews have not encountered much of the damage from seawater brought in by the hurricane’s storm surge.
“We’ve been kept out of the flood plains so far,” McClaskey said. “We’ve seen a couple of boats up against the bulkheads but that’s about it.”
City Light sent 14 employees and four trucks to New York to help the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) with its recovery. Centre Island located on Oyster Bay. Muttontown is south of Oyster Bay and north of the Long Island Expressway.
With damage assessment from the storm completed and City Light’s crews fully briefed on the safety rules in place in Long Island, LIPA released some of City Light’s personnel for a return to Washington. Engineers Irv Ogi and Jimmy Lin, who served as damage assesors, and Safety Advisor Kevin Davis were scheduled to fly home Saturday.
Meanwhile, additional lineworkers from many other utilities were arriving to help with restoration.
At the height of the storm, about 950,000 LIPA customers were without power. Restoration was dealt a setback when a nor’easter dumped heavy snow on the area Wednesday. Falling trees put many people out of power again. About 160,000 LIPA customers remained without electricity Friday.
On Twitter, look for the #SandyHelp hashtag for updates on recovery efforts.