Long Island Power Outages Top 338K After Isaias Strikes
Tropical Storm Isaias, with wind gusts approaching 80 mph, knocked out power to a third of all PSEG Long Island customers Tuesday. At 9 p.m., there were 338,076 outages on the island, according to the PSEG outage map.
"Tropical Storm Isaias was one of the strongest storms to hit our service territory in recent years, and some outages could last for an extended period," PSEG said.
The number of outages may be higher than reported as many Long Islanders have had trouble reporting outages on PSEG's website or via phone.
"We have down wires and we can’t get through on phone or through text to report them," a PSEG customer wrote on Facebook. "We have been trying for more than 4 hours and we have young children in our home with live wires on the front lawn."
Response and power restoration times could be delayed due to COVID-19 and its impact not only on the availability of mutual aid, but also because of PSEG's own extensive health and safety protocols related to the coronavirus, PSEG said.
"More than 2,000 personnel are actively assessing damage and restoring power safely and as quickly as possible," the company said.
Send photos or videos of storm damage to ryan@patch.com and note the location.
Photo by Gabrielle Schilling/Bayport
Photo by Dan Hampton/Port Washington
Photo by Rob/Wantagh
Photo by Codi Fletcher/Floral Park
Photo by Hank/North Merrick
Photo by Mary/Lindenhurst
Photo by Kat Lee/Hicksville
Photo by Thomas Butler/Garden City
Photo by Barbara Smith/Laurel
Photo by Lo/Mount Sinai
Photo by Judi Weissman/Kings Park
Photo by Diana Del Valle/North Babylon
Photo by Frank Raffaele/Port Jefferson Station
Though I would share another video that my family from down the block took. Another close call that ended up with everyone being ok. Isaias may have “only” been a category 1 at its peak, but you should always take tropical systems and sever weather seriously #Isaias @News12LI pic.twitter.com/R8cXjF8AYo
— Michael Browne (@MichaelBrownewx) August 4, 2020
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This article originally appeared on the Port Washington Patch