Clean-up Underway in East Hampton; 2,000 Appear To Get Power Back

In East Hampton, Hurricane Irene left thousands without power and a mess everywhere, but many said they were expecting much worst as they began the clean-up process on Monday.

While nearly 7,000, or a quarter of the Long Island Power Authority customers in town, were without power, 2,000 customers just had service restored throughout the town, according to its website.

Amagansett got hit the worst -- still 1,966 of 2,842 customers are without power. Amagansett Fire Department Chief Mark Bennett said a transformer blew on Sunday morning. "I think it's going to be a long haul," he said on Sunday night.

In Montauk there are 1,185 (there had been more) without power and about 966 (There had been over 1,800) are impacted in Springs. There are about 550 in Northwest Harbor without power, 112 in Wainscott, and 30 in other areas of East Hampton.

The Long Island Power Authority set up a staging area before the storm hit with a workforce, poles, cables and transformers at the East Hampton Airport for service recovery. Lines of trucks from Asplundh Tree Expert Company, which specializes in emergency storm services, could be spotted there before the storm was even over.  

Before rushing to the next site in one of several big, orange Asplundh trucks one Asplundh worker said this morning, “We’re just getting going, but there’s going to be a lot of progress today.”

Monday morning, Stanley Redlus the owner of Loving Touches, located in Hardscrabble Commons, which he also owns, had begun cleanup. “Making it a little bit better,” he said as he worked.

He raked debris into corners and explained that he will need a professional work crew to really do the job. Still, he feels fortunate, saying that the aftermath is “not bad compared to what happened up island.”

Maureen Bobin left her home in New Jersey on Friday at 3 a .m. morning to help her 91 year old father and 88 year old mother on Cooper Lane in East Hampton with preparation and later clean up. “I’ve already taken one full truck load and I have at least another one,” she said refering to the East Hampton Town Recycling Center. It is accepting brush this week free of charge and will be open on Wednesday when it is usually closed.

Bobin feels fortunate that storm did not hit them worse. Still, she says that the mess that Irene left behind is something that she did not want her parents to have to deal with. “They wanted to do it themselves. We’ve been having a fight all morning,” she said.

Also on Cooper Lane a 13 year old named Harvey cut up large branches with a hatchet to help his family tidy things up for his sister’s 10th birthday tomorrow. Harvey’s father Rick explained that his daughter wants to make a movie in a garden so “she’s desperate to get things cleaned up.”

Although there is much to be done he added, “I reckon it could have been a lot worse," he said. "Makes you realize how vulnerable we are.”