Rain, wind batter LIPA, knock out power

Thousands of new power outages rippled across Long Island Tuesday, including one that shut down a Merrick school, as state lawmakers planned hearings on the utility's response to Tropical Storm Irene.

Meanwhile, Long Island Power Authority trustees pushed back by two weeks a Sept. 22 vote on the future structure of the authority. Trustee David Calone said it was unrelated to the criticism of LIPA's power restoration efforts. The extra time will give trustees and the public more time to make a fully informed decision, he said.

Last week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo threatened LIPA contractor National Grid with loss of its contract if it didn't "get the power on now." Most power was restored by Sunday.

LIPA also canceled a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday on its future structure, because utility officials were busy with restoration efforts, Calone said.

Between about 8 a.m. and noon Tuesday, posted outages topped 9,100. The number dropped to around 2,576 by Tuesday evening and 1,496 by Wednesday morning.

"Our experience is that after large storms, branches can be hanging on lines or branches can be weakened, and you get collateral damage," said spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter, explaining the surge.

State senators on Long Island said the Senate Committee on Investigations plans a hearing Sept. 22 on the storm response. LIPA chief Michael Hervey is expected to attend.

The committee is chaired by state Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset), who last week blasted LIPA's storm restoration performance. "We got tons and tons and tons of phone calls" from desperate constituents, said Marcellino spokeswoman Kathy Wilson.

State Sen. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) said he will hold a hearing of the Senate Consumer Protection Committee, which he chairs.

"If we don't learn all the lessons about what just happened, we're letting a valuable opportunity pass us by," Zeldin said.

State Sen. Charles Fuschillo Jr. (R-Merrick) said he continued to field calls from outage-affected constituents Tuesday. "It's still going on," he said.

Merrick Middle School, where Fuschillo's daughter and 900 others were to start Tuesday, canceled classes because of an outage that LIPA blamed on Tuesday's wind and rain. Many students had to stay at school because they had no ride home, said school spokeswoman Michelle Gagnon. LIPA said power was restored by 2 p.m.

LIPA trustees and officials said they too will conduct reviews of their storm performance. Separately, Suffolk Legis. Wayne Horsley called for Hervey to appear before his energy committee this month, but said Hervey declined. "Bottom line: LIPA has to appear before the public," Horsley said.

With Gary Dymski