As Long Island grapples with the recovery from Hurricane Sandy and more than 100,000 customers remain without power due to the superstorm, LIPA says another 40,000 customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties lost power during Wednesday’s nor’easter, which brought heavy winds and left a blanket of snow over Long Island.
Lauren Nash, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service, said wind gusts would likely blow down power lines and tree limbs weakened from Sandy and cause more power outages and that’s exactly what happened during Long Island’s latest storm.
This morning more trees, weakened by Sandy, fell in Garden City and, in a separate incident, a stretch of Stewart Avenue lost electricity when an underground transformer went on fire.
Later in they day the Long Island Expressway was shut down in both directions at exit 40 near Jericho because of icy road conditions.
Many school districts already announced early dismissals for Wednesday afternoon including Sachem, Freeport and Southampton.
A high wind warning remains in effect from 2 p.m. Wednesday to 4 a.m. Thursday. Winds are expected to reach speeds between 25 and 40 MPH with gusts up to 60 MPH. THe NWS says isolated gusts of up to 70 MPH are possible.
The NWS expects total snow accumulation to be anywhere from 1-4 inches. The snow will continue in parts of Long Island through noon Thursday.
At least another 11,000 Con Edison customers had been knocked out in the new round of bad weather, with the worst damage in Westchester County.
Some of those people now in the dark had skated through Sandy unscathed. Others had just gotten their electricity back.
Con Ed officials say the bad weather has also slowed restoration efforts.
With AP