Long Island Newsday

LIPA's $6.9B debt hinders storm preparedness

Originally published: December 2, 2012 6:22 PM
Updated: December 2, 2012 9:18 PM
By MARK HARRINGTON AND TED PHILLIPS mark.harrington@newsday.com,ted.phillips@newsday.com

Photo credit: Ed Betz | A LIPA worker repairs an electric line in Ronkonkoma. (Nov. 11, 2012)

Galleries

Protestors rally against LIPA outside National Grid in

LIPA protests This photo shows the view looking north at

Aerial photos of superstorm Sandy damage Robert Fantel sits on a couch of garbage

Stunning scenes from Sandy

Web links

Newsday's interactive graphic outlines the connections among LIPA

Interactive: LIPA connections to politicians LIPA subcontracted workers from Riggs Distler out of

Search LIPA salaries LIPA outages by community, using official data from

Map: LIPA outages

LIPA's $6.9 billion debt load, long portrayed as a hindrance to rate relief and new energy projects, also stands in the way of efforts to protect the Long Island grid from the impact of the next major storm.

Despite storm-hardening initiatives and capital projects that saw much of the grid replaced in the past 12 years, superstorm Sandy took out 50 of LIPA's 185 substations, 4,500 utility...

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