Politics & Government

With 10,000 Still Without Power, Southold Officials Assess Damage After Irene

"We have a very, very messy town right now," according to Supervisor Scott Russell.

With 10,000 North Forkers without power as of 3:50 p.m. on Monday, town leaders started assessing damage from Orient to Laurel to see firsthand the effects of Tropical Storm Irene.

"We have a very, very messy town right now, no doubt about it" said Supervisor Scott Russell. "There are a lot of trees on the ground requiring a lot of cleanup. Most of the community is still without power."

According to a Long Island Power Authority outage map, 68 percent of the town's nearly 15,000 customers were without power on Monday afternoon. Russell said he had been "stalking" LIPA to figure out when Southold would be back on the grid, and was hoping for more information following a Monday afternoon press conference.

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that 95 percent of those who lost power from the storm - 524,000 - would be restored by Friday.

Southold started offering free roadside debris pickup on Monday as highway department crews start to make their way around town picking up fallen leaves and branches; Russell estimated it could take as much as a couple of weeks to pick up the whole town's debris. The town is also offering free dropoff at its Cutchogue transfer station until further notice.

Find out what's happening in North Forkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Russell said he would spend the rest of the week making his way around town and assessing damage.

While north shore beaches often take a beating during storms, the effects of Irene have not resulted in many calls from residents neighboring the Long Island Sound.

Jill Doherty, president of the Southod Board of Trustees, said she hasn't "heard much from the north shore," and Trustee Bob Ghosio reports from the town as a whole have been slim, though he's expecting more in coming days.

"I suspect when folks with second homes out here come out this weekend we're going to get slammed with calls," he said.

However from his firsthand observations during the storm, Ghosio said he recalled Town Beach being "no rougher than it would be on just a bad day."

The Trustees office is closed on Monday along with all other departments in the Town Hall Annex, though the Trustees will be open on Tuesday accepting emergency permits.

Police Chief Martin Flatley said calls post-Irene have been just as heavy as during the storm.

"Everybody wants to know why we can't do something about the power," Flatley said on Monday afternoon. "We have no control over when we're getting power back, but people have very little patience when it comes to events like this."

He said the town kept a third dispatcher on during the storm and was likely to keep another on until at least midnight Tuesday morning.


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