UPDATED: About 200 Outages Reported Across North Fork

Update, Saturday, 10:45 p.m.: Long Island Power Authority is reporting about 200 outages across the North Fork. Roughly two-third of the outages – 148 to be exact – are reported in Southold hamlet.

Shelter Island is powered back up, according to LIPA.

Update, Friday, 10:31 p.m. - As the winter storm intensified acorss the North Fork, power outages jumped to above 3,000 in the region.

Outages in Shelter Island dropped to 1,008, but across Southold the number creeped to 1,942. 

The bulk, according to LIPA's outage map, were in Orient Point, where 1,570 were in the dark. Meanwhile, Mattituck outages dropped to 177 and in Southold the number fell to 159.

Update, 7:54 p.m. - Nearly 1,600 outages are being reported in Shelter Island Heights Friday evening, as the winter storm continues to wallop the region. 

Meanwhile, Southold town is listing 860 outages, with 555 of those in Mattituck, 116 in Peconic, 153 in Southold and 36 in Orient Point, according to the Long Island Power Authority's outage tracker.

Original Story - Close to 800 homes on the North Fork and Shelter Island were reported to be without power as of 5:45 p.m. Friday, as a strong blizzard began to wallop the area.

According to the Long Island Power Authority's storm map, most of the outages – over 500 – are centered in Mattituck, while a handful of pockets of powerless customers are reported in Cutchogue, Peconic, Shelter Island and Orient.

LIPA reports that 509 customers in Mattituck are located just northeast of the Love Lane-Route 48 intersection. They are estimated to be turned back on by 8:30 p.m. Friday.

National Grid President John Bruckner said Friday they expect about 100,000 power outages across Long Island from the storm, though outages are not expected to last more than 24 hours, he said.

LIPA put National Grid in charge of the storm response on Thursday – the first time it relinquished control in its history – after all-time lows in public faith in the utility due to its response the Hurricane Sandy in November.

Bruckner said the company has 700 high-voltage lineman and 250 tree-trimmers ready to act after the storm. In addition National Grid is upping the number of call-center personnel to provide better communication during and after the storm, Bruckner said.

National Grid has fully restocked its supplies of power lines, transformers and wires so that workers do not have to wait for shipments to come in, like they did during Superstorm Sandy.

“The resources we needed, we didn’t see until many days after Sandy. For this storm, they are on Long Island,” he said.

Bruckner also said that the company is monitoring the potential storm surge on Long Island’s North Shore, and has already sandbagged its equipment in case of flooding.

“We feel we’re in pretty good shape going into this storm,” Bruckner said.

The biggest concern for National Grid during the storm is not snow, but wind. Forecasters predict the New England nor'easter wind will range from 30 to 40 miles per hour with howling gusts hitting 60 miles per hour.

“This is not a typical storm. Usually, a storm comes in and out in an hour or two. This storm will last a couple days,” he said.

Bruckner said that National Grid will have 1,000 personnel on the ground early Saturday to assess the damage. Critical care customers including hospitals, nursing homes and sewage treatment plants will be attended to first. After that, areas with the most outages will be the focus, and lastly, the parts of the island with the least amount of outages.

Bruckner also said that National Grid has supplied generators to fuel terminals, so that gas shortages that happened during Superstorm Sandy do not repeat.

Amanda Lindner contributed to this report.