On Saturday there were so many volunteers and military that they had to stop the inflow because nobody could get onto the pennisula(there really are only 2 bridges going into Rockaway( unless you enter from 5 towns into Far Rock). I have seen a lot of bad stuff, but the one great thing is people are helping each other in ways great and small. LIPA is incompetent but these out of state utlilty stories seem to be a myth.
Every major substation on the Rockaway peninsula was under water. That equipment is really not designed to soak in salt water. Plus, wires are down on nearly every circuit, generally multiple wires per circuit. Two substations had to be temporarily (or perhaps permanently) abandoned. For the others, rack trucks of 200-800lb breakers were removed and brought to a contractor who claims he can clean them and make them work, while the permanent equipment is cleaned and/or replaced by workers in the subs. The work is extensive and tedious, being performed by people forced to work 16 hour shifts to restore power far from home, who are often coming home to their own dark houses because 80% of the company's workforce is servicing less than 10% of its customers out there.
This storm was completely unprecedented. Nothing like it ever hit the Island before. And the scary thing is, this storm didn't even hit the island. We always have some longer duration outages as a result of the overhead/backyard system we run, but never had anything like this before.
The same gov't officials who are getting on the TV to "hold LIPA accountable," we're in on meetings where LIPA outlined their storm plans and the gov't signed off on them before the storm. LIPA is a gov't agency. These are just a$$holes looking to score political points in a crisis, from the governor on down. In reality, they're doing jacksh*t.
