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Fierce storms knock out power across LI

BY JOHN VALENTI | john.valenti@newsday.com

4:09 PM EDT, June 26, 2009

Morning storms Friday knocked out power across Long Island -- first in an early-morning wave that affected about 700 customers and a later wave that hit more than 1,300.

The Long Island Power Authority reported a lightning strike knocked out service to 547 customers in Dix Hills early Friday, most of them along Carll's Straight Path between the Long Island Expressway and the Vanderbilt Parkway. Another 159 were without power in Wyandanch -- the result of a downed line.

After emergency crews scrambled to get those customers on line, driving rains hit the Island again, leaving 1,357 customers in Nassau without power at 12:30 p.m., LIPA said.

The bulk of those outages were concentrated in the area of Plainview-Old Bethpage, according to the LIPA online outage map -- which showed 375 outages in Plainview and another 308 in Old Bethpage. Just one customer in Old Bethpage was without power as of 2:30 p.m., LIPA said.