Town Supervisor: Normalcy is Weeks Away

“We’re not going to get back to normal anytime soon,” Babylon Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer said this morning in a statement on News 12.

The Supervisor said that he is expecting clean up and restoration from Sandy's wreckage to take between three and four weeks for residents return to return to their regular routines.

In Deer Park and North Babylon, the damage is mostly from downed trees and electricity poles. 

According to the Long Island Power Authority, 441,958 people are without power in the Town of Babylon as of Tuesday morning. Deer Park currently has 5,475 outages and North Babylon has 3,850. West Babylon got the worst of it with 18,490. Estimated times of restoration are still not available through LIPA, however crews are were working to restore power by 7 a.m. Tuesday. 

The power authority warns residents to be prepared to be without power for at least 7 to 10 days.  

Schaffer said he is hopeful that if most of the power outages in the northern part of town are due to downed electricity poles, that large chucks of the area will have power restored more quickly.

For the southern areas of town, including Babylon Village and Lindenhurst south of Montauk highway, the damage is far more severe.

Schaffer said that firefighters and first responders were taking people and children, who did not follow evacuation orders, out of the area in buckets. However, the situation of all residents is not known, since volunteers are not able to get their equipment to some parts of the beach communities.

“Listen, if you’re an adult and you put yourself in harm’s way, that’s one thing. But when you have children, you have to air on the side of caution,” he said in the interview.

As far as life returning to normalcy in the Town of Babylon, Schaffer said, “I can’t stress enough that we are going to need serious patience.”

He encouraged residents to lend a hand to their neighbors and work together to restore the town.