LIPA: Halfway To Restoring Power

Long Island Power Authority officials reported Tuesday that they've completed power restoration to about half the customers who lost power as a result of hurricane.

"We have approximately 270,000 customer outages remaining as of this morning ," LIPA chief Michael Hervey said at a morning press briefing. "This reflects over the last 24 hours we've restored about 124,000 customers."

About 523,000 customers initially lost power because of the storm and the company upped the number of problem areas they've found.

After completing about half of  their initial damage assessment on Monday, LIPA said they had found about 750 areas where there had been significant damage in the storm. They're now saying they've found 3,000 areas wtih significant damage. 

According to a LIPA website, 5,466 customers are without power across Riverhead. Over 95 percent of those outages are in Wading River and Calverton. Between Jamesport, Aquebogue, Northville, and Riverhead proper, 264 customers are without power, according to the site.

However, LIPA is only currenlty updating their website twice a day with a total number of customer outages. LIPA said could not provide additional information or a time frame for when to expect power in Riverhead.

"We've has a high level of information, but not detailed information," Hervey said at the briefing. "But we're in a state now having done our damage assessments where we can give our customers the detailed information about outages that they're used to getting."

The company has come under criticism by some area elected officials about the restoration job and the company has pledged to start giving out more information.

"LIPA gets an 'F,'" New York State Senator Ken LaValle, R-Port Jefferson, said yesterday. "I've spoken to all five East End supervisors, and the number one issue is LIPA. They're not being served."

Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter was unable to be reached for comment.