Long Islanders are thankful for electricity Monday on the three-year anniversary of the largest blackout in modern history.

Long Islanders were among the 50 million people in the U.S. and Canada who were left in the dark during the power outage of 2003. Officials say the blackout was caused by overloaded transmission lines sagging into trees that hadn?t been trimmed. According to the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), steps have been taken to prevent such an outage from happening again.

Officials say Midwest utilities now have a new computer system and are communicating better with Northeast operators. LIPA has added a communications system at KeySpan headquarters and says all top brass now carry satellite phones.

On the power side, LIPA says it depends full-time on the 330-megawatt Cross Sound Cable and is working on a 660-megawatt Neptune Cable. Plans are also being made to construct an on-island Caithness Energy plant in Yaphank. Officials say Washington is getting involved, with new federal energy legislation calling for mandatory reliability standards for utilities.