Wait for power wearing on frustrated LIers

Every day since Tuesday, Pat Mantione, who lives at 3 S. Elm St. in Hicksville, has been told by the utility company her electricity will be restored "tomorrow."

She talked about the experience Saturday, echoing the frustration of about 18,000 LIPA customers on Long Island still without power Saturday night, a week after Tropical Storm Irene passed through.

Most on Mantione's street have power -- just her house and neighbors at numbers 1, 5 and 7 don't.

Comfort all week came in believing help was on its way, but Saturday, she and her husband, Frank, received inexplicable news: They and the three other homes on South Elm Street "aren't even on the list" of homes to be serviced, she said.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that South Elm Street is directly across from National Grid's KeySpan Energy division headquarters.

The long-term outage has been especially difficult for the poor, the elderly, and the sick or disabled. That includes the residents of the 300-plus mobile homes in Gildersleeve Park, a North Amityville trailer park yet to have its power fully restored.

Residents lost electricity completely Sunday during the storm, but when it was restored Tuesday, there was a fire at the single transformer supplying the park that burned out part of the wiring, and only low voltage power has been available since.

For many, that's meant no refrigeration or air-conditioning, no water heating for some and only limited lighting in their home and around the park.

Residents have called LIPA repeatedly.

"It's disgusting," said Stanley Cooper, 78, who has lived at the park since 1972 and needs a motorized scooter to get around because his feet were frostbitten while he served with the Navy in Korea, he said.

The park's oldest resident, Muriel Barnett, 93, who uses a wheelchair, has managed with no lights in two of three rooms, but said it was difficult navigating her walker to the bathroom at night.

Frayed nerves are starting to show among the residents.

"I hope they come soon because people are really suffering," said Eydie Carusio, 60.

When contacted about the trailer park, LIPA said it would supply an update when information became available.

A Central Islip man was arrested Saturday after police said he called News 12 Long Island and threatened to place a bomb at an unknown LIPA facility, Nassau County police said.

Rajiv Pandey, 33, was charged with falsely reporting an incident, police said.

For some Long Islanders, such as Donna Fairchild and her neighbors in Copiague, the wait ended yesterday, bringing an end to days of loud generators powering refrigerators. The return of power brought also the responsibility of chores. "I can vacuum, I can do laundry," said Fairchild, 51, when asked what she was going to do.

But elsewhere, residents have had to improvise, sometimes enduring conditions unfamiliar to those raised in developed countries.

Evelyn Casmir, 56, of Lindenhurst, was among a handful of people who stopped by a Red Cross station to pick up packets of self-heating meals Saturday morning. She works as a live-in caretaker for a woman with Alzheimer's disease and they've been without power since Sunday. "This morning, I had to use candles to warm up water for her tea," which took 30 minutes, she said.

She said she knows LIPA has "so much to cover. But at the end, it's frustrating."

With Kery Murakami

and Keith Herbert