LIPA chief tours storm-ravaged south Merrick with legislator

The Long Island Power Authority’s chief operating officer, Michael Hervey, toured storm-ravaged parts of south Merrick with Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg on Wednesday to reassure frustrated homeowners that power would be restored to their homes.

Specifically, Hervey stopped off on Florence Street, where four trees that had stood for more than 60 years collapsed on Sunday morning amidst Hurricane Irene, which was downgraded to a tropical storm when it made landfall on Long Island’s South Shore. The trees crashed onto power lines and tore up sidewalks up and down the normally quiet block, as floodwaters from Merrick Bay rushed in. Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick, said the damage was the worst that he had seen in south Merrick.

Angry residents who have been without power since Sunday demanded answers from Hervey, asking when electricity would come back and what the power authority would do in the future to prevent trees from falling into power lines. Elisa Duren noted that the block is in near total darkness at night, which has attracted thieves to the area. “We caught three men breaking into our car,” Duren said. Police “said it’s happening all over Merrick and Bellmore.”

Hervey said that cleanup after a storm of Irene’s magnitude takes time. He said crews always begin the process at area substations and fan out from there, repairing damage along the way. The nearest substation, he said, is in central Bellmore.

Crews are working as fast as they can, Hervey said, adding that he was “pleasantly surprised that trucks are getting here,” to Florence Street. He could not say when precisely the lights would come back on in south Merrick, but he said crews would be working until they did.

A crew that LIPA had hired from Alabama had come to Florence Street late on Tuesday night and began the hard work of cutting up the two sycamores and two maples that had once graced the block. A second crew returned shortly before Hervey’s arrival at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday. That crew left soon after Hervey’s departure, and an hour later, a Town of Hempstead road crew came with a dump truck and payloader to remove the trees entirely.