Photos: Isaias downs trees, leaves 6,300 without power on North Fork
Photos: Isaias downs trees, leaves 6,300 without power on North Fork
Photos by Grant Parpan
Tropical Storm Isaias may have moved quickly past the North Fork Tuesday, but it left a lasting impact.
Roadways were littered with downed tree branches, limbs and in some instances the uprooted tree itself. Power lines were taken down in neighborhoods across both Riverhead and Southold towns.
And after a delay in reporting, PSEG Long Island announced Tuesday night that the storm left more than 4,500 North Fork customers without power. It later upgraded that number to around 6,300, doubling the number for Riverhead Town, where just over 4,900 outages were reported as of Wednesday morning. About 1,700 remained without power in Southold.
Virtually all of Orient was without power as of 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. More than 15% of customers were without power in Southold and Riverhead hamlets, Greenport West and Calverton.
Nearly 400,000 total PSEGLI customers across Long Island were affected by the storm, the utility reported.
Downed power lines and blown transformers led to grass fires on South Harbor Road in Southold, where traffic was shut down for a period of time, and Stillwater Avenue in Cutchogue.
For a good chunk of Tuesday afternoon, westbound traffic was being redirected at Cox Lane in Cutchogue and Wickham Avenue in Mattituck as downed trees made portions of the road impassable. A fallen tree also destroyed a mobile home in Aquebogue.
Wading River was the most visibly impacted by downed trees and power lines with roads like Sunset Boulevard and Long Pond Road shut down as of 5 p.m. due to hazardous situations.
Sustained winds reportedly reached as high as 45 miles per hour on Long Island, the National Weather Service said, with gusts up to 85 miles per hour, higher than was originally forecast.
The storm struck the East End shortly before 2 p.m. with the bulk of the damage done before 5 p.m. As of 8 p.m., the storm was more than 100 miles north of Montauk, according to the NWS.
Expect mostly sunny skies with a high of about 87 degrees on Wednesdays. The forecast remains warm and sunny through the weekend.
