Westbury senior apartment complex frustrated with extended wait for power restoration
Residents at a Westbury senior complex remain without power after a storm topples trees and utility poles, leaving older neighbors stranded and fueling frustration over the restoration effort.
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Residents at The Tiffany on School Street in Westbury say they have been without power since Saturday night after a powerful storm brought down trees, utility poles and power lines.
"The lights flickered and everything went out," resident Robin Carter said.
Neighbors say a fallen tree knocked down several utility poles during the storm, leaving wires, branches and debris scattered across the street. On Sunday afternoon, construction crews were seen cutting up fallen trees, but residents said they had not yet seen utility crews from PSEG at the scene.
"I was thinking, where are the trucks, the employees of PSEG?" said resident Domenick Saccomanno. "When are they moving this stuff? When are they lifting the wires? When will they offer help to these people?"
Residents at the apartment complex said they lost power around 8 p.m. Saturday. According to PSEG, restoration was expected by 10 p.m. Sunday, leaving residents without electricity for more than 24 hours.
"Several of our neighbors are well into their 90s," Carter said. "If they are on the second or third floors, they are stranded and can't come down. We don't have air conditioning. We can't even cook because everything is electric here."
PSEG officials acknowledged that while most affected customers were expected to have power restored by the end of Sunday, some outages involving extensive damage could take longer to repair.
"We do expect some customers that saw more complex damage to be restored tomorrow," said Larry Torres, Senior Director of Emergency Preparedness for PSEG. "But a majority of our customers that are out will be restored at the end of the day today."
