Police

Blown transformer causes more outages in Riverhead

JENNIFER GUSTAVSON PHOTO | Riverhead firefighters at Minuteman Press in Riverhead Sunday afternoon.

More than 1,100 LIPA customers in Riverhead were briefly without power Sunday afternoon, causing concern in a hamlet just getting over Superstorm Sandy.

The outages were related to a malfunctioning underground LIPA transformer in front of downtown’s Minuteman Press store, officials said.

Police, firefighters and Long Island Power Authority repairmen rushed to the Main Street printing center about 1 p.m. for a reported cloud of smoke believed to be related to the outages, fire officials said.

Riverhead Fire Chief Tony White said stressed there was no fire at Minuteman Press, though firefighters did enter the building – by popping a lock — to investigate. Minuteman was closed Sunday.

An employee at nearby Digger O’Dell’s said the power never went out at the restaurant, but that the business lost cable about the same time staffers and patrons first started smelling smoke.

Nearly all the outages, including traffic lights that were reportedly out north of Roanoke Avenue, had been restored about an hour later, according to LIPA estimates.

JENNIFER GUSTAVSON