After the hurricane: How Riverhead coped with Irene

More than 11,000 Riverhead customers are without power this afternoon, as the Long Island Power Authority scrambles to restore service to the nearly half a million customers left in the dark by Hurricane Irene across Long Island.

The entire hamlet of Jamesport was without power since the predawn hours and remained so as of about 2 p.m., said Jamesport Fire Chief Scott McKillop in a phone interview. LIPA says it has now restored power to all Jamesport residents.

Some 13,400 customers in Riverhead Town — 70 percent of all customers — were without power at the peak of the storm, LIPA reported earlier today. 

See storm photo slideshows, “During the hurricane, Part 1” and “During the hurricane, Part 2.”

Peconic Bay Medical Center lost power to its air conditioning plant and the Kanas Center for Advanced Surgery this morning, after a number of brief outages overnight.  The hospital switched on its one million watt rental generator to avoid damage to our air conditioning plant, PBMC CEO Andrew Mitchell said this afternoon.

“Our permanent 500,000-watt diesel generator serving the Kanas Center activated like clockwork, providing full power to our ORs and related patient care areas,” Mitchell said. The CEO was relieved that the investment in rental generators paid off, he said.

Mitchell said he anticipated the hospital would resume normal operations Monday morning.

Police: Please stay home

Riverhead Police are urging residents to stay off the roads for the remainder of the day, citing continued strong gusty winds and a lot of debris still on local roads. A state of emergency remains in effect in Riverhead, said Police Chief David Hegermiller.

Downed wires have forced some roads to remain closed, such as a portion of Peconic Bay Boulevard in Jamesport near the Southold town line; the wire, which has burned in the road all day is still hot, said Jamesport Fire Chief Scott McKillop. LIPA has not been able to give local authorities an estimate of when a crew would make it to the site, McKillop said. Riverhead Town Police and Jamesport fire police are manning detour points on the boulevard.

Other road closures this afternoon include Fox Chaser Place in Jameseport, Peconic Bay Boulevard near Bay Woods in Aquebogue, Church Lane in Aquebogue, Hallock Street in Riverhead, Northville Turnpike between Union and Ostrander in Riverhead, North Country Road at Farm Road in Wading River, and Old River Road in Manorville.

Storm keeps local firefighters busy

Riverhead firefighters were called to fight three structure fires during the hurricane. Two were fires in abandoned homes in Riverhead — one on Northville Turnpike, right behind the Roanoke Avenue firehouse, the other on Flanders Road in Riverside — and the third fire was a bayfront home in Hampton Bays, Riverhead Fire Chief Nick Luparella said. Hampton Bays called in Riverhead on mutual aid.

“For a time, it seemed like the fire would spread to a neighboring home,” Luparella said. Riverhead responded with a tanker and a crew of five to the neighboring district, even as local firefighters were still working to put out fires in the home district. Flanders Fire Department stood by at the Riverhead firehouse.

All area fire departments had numerous downed wires, transformer fires, tree fires to deal with during the storm, in addition to automatic alarms going off due to power outages and surges.

It was a very hectic morning for police and emergency workers as Irene roared ashore.

‘Cleanup mode’

“Now, we’re in cleanup mode,” Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter said this afternoon.

See storm photo slideshow, “After the hurricane.”

“Things went very smoothly, especially with opening the emergency shelter,” the supervisor said. “We sheltered 300 people there as of this morning,” Walter said.

The supervisor was at the shelter during set-up yesterday and returned last night at about 9 p.m. to check on things. He went back after the storm passed, and was pleased with how happy the people who took refuge in the high school gym were with the operation.

“They were well fed and as comfortable as can be expected. It went off without a hitch,” he said. “It’s a credit to town workers, volunteers and the Red Cross volunteers,” Walter said, commending shelter manager Kent Terchunian, a Riverheader, with a successful operation.

“We learned some things,” he said of the operation, the first time in memory an emergency shelter was opened in Riverhead. “But overall, I’d say we fared pretty well.”

McKillop had special praise for town highway crews, who were “very responsive” and arrived quickly to deal with downed trees and branches, keeping local roads open.  “They did a great job,” he said.

Highway superintendent George Woodson and his crews were at the ready all night, stationed at various parts of town so they could clean up Irene’s mess even if roads were made impassable by the storm’s wrath.

Woodson estimated about 70 trees were lost throughout town.

Low-lying coastal areas that typically flood in a storm surge were under water when the midday high tide rolled in. The Peconic River overflowed its banks downtown and turned the asphalt lot behind East Main Street into a small lake.

‘Don’t pump stormwater into sewer drains’

Riverhead Sewer District superintendent Michael Reichel reminded residents not to pump stormwater from their basements into the sanitary sewer system.

“Pumping stormwater into the sanitary sewer system can cause the system to overflow,” Reichel said. “Please discharge your sump pump outside,” the superintendent said.

Walter said the town is already getting ready for its FEMA application.

“I’m confident there will be a disaster declaration for Suffolk County,” he said.

Farmers taking stock of crop damage

Farmers were bracing for major losses before the hurricane arrived and were just beginning to assess the damages this afternoon.

“Thankfully it was not as bad as either Gloria or Bob,” Paumanok Vineyard owner Charles Massoud said this afternoon.

But he said he was still unsure what the net effect, if any, will be for this year’s grape crop.

“There was a period of strong winds coming from the south, therefore from the ocean,” Massoud said. “If these winds brought salt in the windborne spray then there will be extensive damage to the canopies and that may turn out to be catastrophic,” he said.

Residents and business owners could be seen around Riverhead this afternoon beginning the cleanup. Chainsaws buzzed, and plywood began coming off store windows. People with armfuls of five-pound-bags of ice could be seen exiting local stores.

The supervisor said he felt residents of Riverhead and the East End were, overall, very lucky. “It could have been so much worse,” he said. “In some ways, even though this was an actual emergency, it was still sort of an exercise. One day, when that Category 2 or 3 hurricane comes, and it will, we’ll be better prepared to deal with it because of Irene.”