LIPA Restores 80 Percent of Malverne, West Hempstead; 534 Customers Remain

Long Island Power Authority crews have been making progress in Malverne and West Hempstead this week, replacing cracked poles, fallen wires and restoring power to hundreds of customers whose lights went out when Irene hit Sunday.

In a press briefing Friday morning, LIPA officials said they believed they would hit their target of having 90 percent of the outages throughout Long Island fixed by the day's end.

So far, 80 percent of customers who lost power in Malverne, West Hempstead and Lakeview during Irene were restored as of Friday evening. Still, 534 of the roughly 2,400 customers across the three communities who reported outages after the tropical storm were still .

Only half of Malverne residents, or 300, who lost their power were back on the grid. LIPA had restored power to 82 percent of West Hempstead residents, leaving 150 to attend to, and 60 percent of Lakeview customers who experienced outages, with 84 left.

Many residents were getting worried that they would have to go the entire three-day weekend without power if LIPA did not get to them Friday, but the company said this is not the case. They will be working throughout the weekend, although they are a bit concerned with a forecasted thunderstom on Sunday, which could interfere with their progress. for more on the press briefing.

Stay with Patch for more upates.