LIPA: 99% of customers have power Sunday

The Long Island Power Authority reached its goal of restoring electricity to 99 percent of its customers affected by Tropical Storm Irene, with little more than 5,200 in the dark Sunday evening -- down to just over 1,000 Monday morning.

Still, for some, dissatisfaction with the utility's response will linger longer than any outage.

"We all deserved better," said Massapequa Park Mayor James Altadonna Jr., who struggled last week to get a localized action plan for his village, where at one point 90 percent of electric customers were without power. "The most frustrating thing for me was that this storm was not a surprise."

At its peak, LIPA reported more than 523,000 customers without electricity after Irene. When that number had been cut to 18,000 on Saturday, the utility vowed that fewer than 5,200 customers -- roughly 1 percent of those affected -- would have to start a second week relying on candles, flashlights or generators.

About 4,000 line and tree crews made repairs over the weekend, including 50 from neighboring Con Edison, which had just finished restoring power to its Westchester County customers.

By midday Sunday, the largest "dark" pockets were in Plainview, St. James and Muttontown.

Ellen Shrubstein, a Plainview resident for 40 years, said she was less bothered by the prolonged loss of power than by LIPA's series of unrealized restoration estimates.

Starting Wednesday, dispatchers told her to expect service later that day or early the next, she said. They repeated the estimate each time she called -- several times a day -- into Friday night. Power was restored to her block at 7 p.m. Saturday.

"If they told the truth, people could have made plans accordingly," Shrubstein said.

LIPA spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter said she understood the frustration, but many factors could lead to inaccuracies in estimates. "They're based on initial assessments," she said. "A crew can come out and see more damage, or be called to another emergency."

While complaints about LIPA and National Grid, which operates the distribution system, reached the governor's office last week, Baird-Streeter said she also received complimentary calls when the utility restored a customer's power before the estimated time.

On Brook Street in Oakdale, people in the handful of homes still without power Sunday found a bright side. Neighbors who didn't know one another before Irene joked early in the afternoon about having a barbecue when electricity returned. Power was restored just after 4 p.m.

"It would have been nice to have a different way to meet," said Geralyn Tims, 43.

Glen Cove Mayor Ralph Suozzi said he was able to maintain contact with LIPA representatives as customers without power in his city last Sunday -- 9,348 -- whittled to just several dozen Sunday.

But he still asked LIPA chief Michael Hervey to convene a local roundtable of municipal leaders to better prepare for the next event.

"While everyone is looking at LIPA for solutions, all of us can contribute our collective community experiences and brainstorm to come up with both short-term and long-term . . . solutions," Suozzi said.

With Emily C. Dooley