Village of New Hyde Park Mayor Daniel Petruccio blasted the Long Island Power Authority’s response to Hurricane Sandy at last Thursday’s village board meeting for failing to restore power in a more timely manner and a lack of communication.
“In spite of all of our best efforts there are still a number of residents in the village who have not had their power restored as of this evening. This 11-day stretch of time is simply unfathomable,” Petruccio said in a statement. “The level of frustration that our neighbors have felt and expressed is only surpassed by this board’s frustration.”
Aside from daily conference calls with general assessments of the overall status of Nassau County, Petruccio said LIPA initiated no contact with village officials or supervisors.
“Any information or responses that we received were as a result of our persistence and initiatives,” he said.
Petruccio called LIPA “a monolithic cluster fudge” that couldn’t have performed worse than it did.
At the same time, Petruccio praised the efforts of Tom Gannon, village Department of Public Works superintendent, and DPW second in command Sean Murphy for their efforts in expediting the removal of more than 80 trees that came down in the one square mile area that New Hyde Park encompasses. And he praised the efforts of all village DPW workers.
“When we asked the nearly impossible of them they responded by doing the impossible,” Petruccio said
He also praised Deputy Mayor Robert Lofaro who, Petruccio said, became the de facto emergency response coordinator for the village in the hurricane’s aftermath.
“His evident empathy for those residents in distress was inspirational to those of us that had the privilege of working side by side with him,” Petruccio said.
He also noted that village Trustee Lawrence Montreuil was out on the streets in the hours after the hurricane struck helping to coordinate the clean-up effort of Gannon’s DPW crews. He said village Trustee Donald Barbieri manned village offices with village staffer John Jugelski, in the dark and the cold, while power remained out at Baribieri’s home.
Petruccio uniformly praised the efforts of the village administrative staff as “pheonomenal.”
Petruccio related one anecdote about direct interaction with a LIPA contractor team.
During the storm, he said, village administrators got word that LIPA had released a “team” from Florida to clear two trees on South 8th Street. Arriving at the location, Petruccio said he found a team consisting of four bucket trucks and two additional support trucks along with about 17-20 workers focused on the removal of one tree.
When it was suggested that they could be more effective if they sent each bucket truck with a number of workers to another site, we were told that they had only one ticket for this “team” to remove the two trees on South 8th street, Petruccio said.
He said Gannon made daily trips to local sub-stations “to beg, borrow and plead” to get LIPA to release crews to work with our crews.
“Our best results have actually come from avoiding the bureaucratic mess at the top and working directly with the personnel in the substations. This is what we will continue to do until all our residents have their service turned back on,” Petruccio said. “My prayers and sympathies go out to the families who have suffered through this trying experience. They are my neighbors, my fellow workers and my friends.”
One family on Brooklyn Street who were still without power asked Petruccio when they could expect their power to be restored. Petruccio said he couldn’t provide an estimate.
Another resident suggested the village DPW cut down trees that are 20 years or older, but Petruccio said that was impractical.
As of Monday, Petruccio said last Wednesday’s nor’easter had set back the restoration of power in the village and there were sections without power. But he said he had no certain numbers of households, adding that LIPA can’t provide an overview on the situation.
“LIPA still can’t get out of its own way,” he said. “I don’t think they have a real handle on what the problem is.”
