Power to LIers fully restored says LIPA

LIPA officials said Tuesday night power has been restored to all customers who lost it in the storm that began Sunday.

"Any outages from the storm of Dec. 26 and Dec. 27 have been cleared up by 8:15 p.m. tonight," said LIPA spokesman Mark Gross.

More than 500 customers were without power early Tuesday evening.

The outages were just a part of a range of nuisances that the blizzard of 2010 left after it swept across the region. Long Islanders awakened Tuesday to find most major roads clear and passable, and power restored to many homes and businesses, police and government officials said.

A pressing concern, the National Weather Service said, was roadways spotted with treacherous black ice.

The blizzard dropped nearly 2 feet of snow on some areas of Nassau and Suffolk counties, the weather service reported.

The gusty, skin-chafing winds that drove the snow into drifts and created whiteout conditions, made driving all but impossible Monday, as dozens of cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles became stranded or plowed into snowbanks. And even though crews cleared many area roads, officials said those winds drove snow back onto cleared surfaces. The biggest problem areas were the ramps on and off major highways, the New York State Department of Transportation said, because stranded vehicles blocked plows.

For most of Tuesday morning, however, traffic on major roadways, including the Long Island Expressway, and the Northern State and Southern State parkways, moved smoothly. The DOT website listed about a half-dozen morning traffic alerts for Long Island, most of which were cleared in a half-hour or less.

Capt. Richard Clay, commanding officer of the Suffolk County sheriff's enforcement bureau, agreed that Tuesday morning's traffic situation was surprisingly calm. "I think on Monday a lot of people stayed home, so the DOT had a day and a half to work on the roads," he said. "And they did a fantastic job.

"This morning, I also think a lot of people were more cautious than usual, and that helped, too."

Clay said there were some problem spots on the LIE ramps on the exits in the 60s. "Black ice on the ramps, mostly westbound," he said. "But the DOT got to them pretty quickly."

Two crashes on the Southern State Parkway happened between 7:20 a.m. and 8:40 a.m., during the morning rush hour, according to the DOT website. Both were minor accidents that caused brief lane closures.

Later, two alerts were for snow removal, at the Southern State Parkway and Cross Island Parkway exits, and the appearance of black ice, again on the Southern State, eastbound at the Exit 20 ramp. Again, both alerts were resolved, the website said.

Neither Suffolk nor Nassau police reported any major traffic accidents on secondary roads.

In Suffolk, County Road 111, at Sunrise Highway in Manorville, was closed from about 8 to 11 a.m. because blowing snow had iced the roadway, a police spokeswoman said.

A Nassau County police spokeswoman said there was a smattering of reports of minor accidents, "but nothing more than we'd have after any other major snowstorm."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that bus service on Long Island was available on all routes with moderate to extensive delays.

The Long Island Power Authority reported 539 customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties without power at 5:18 p.m. Tuesday.

More than 40,000 customers lost service at the height of the storm, LIPA said.