Uniondale–February 14, 2007-2:30PM — The St. Valentines Day Winter Storm of 2007 is not showing any love for Long Island with its snow, sleet, ice and high winds. In response to storm-related outages, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) has extra crews working 16-hour shifts to restore service to customers as quickly as possible.

Since midnight through 2:30PM, some 39,000 LIPA customers have been affected by the winter weather system with 27,000 restored so far. The peak number of customers out at one time (21,900) occurred at 11 AM today.  700 personnel have been working on extended shifts replacing poles, repairing power lines, removing trees from LIPA facilities, and
replacing fuses and resetting transformers, and coordinating the storm response.

Additional restoration crews will be working extended shifts through the evening and over night to make repairs.

“This winter storm has a bit of a bite to it, because of the ice and high winds,” said LIPA CEO and President Richard M. Kessel.  “And we anticipate that we will experience more outages as the storm works its way past Long Island, because of the high sustained winds and wind gusts, and potential icing.

“We certainly owe a debt of gratitude and a thank you to the men and women of our restoration crews who are working in such horrible conditions to get the lights and heat back on in homes and businesses island-wide as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Kessel.

LIPA customers can visit LIPA’s Storm Center on its Web site at www.lipower.org for real-time outage reports, weather updates, and tips to stay prepared for weather emergencies.

To report an outage or downed wire call 1-800-490-0075.

LIPA Contact Information:
Media Relations: (516) 719-9892
Media Pager: (516) 525-LIPA
media.relations@lipower.org

LIPA News Center
http://www.lipower.org/newscenter

LIPA Storm Center
http://www.lipower.org/stormcenter