Sanitation Pickup to Resume in Area

As the wait for normalcy continued in the Massapequas slow signs of progress continued Wednesday as most residents continued to wait for power to come back on.

One service that will be coming to the area soon is sanitation and recycling collection.

Town of Oyster Bay officials said residents will be getting trash pickup on their regularly scheduled pickup days starting Thursday.

But that doesn't mean that you should wait to put storm damaged items on the curb. A town spokesman said that such items can be curbed immediately and in some cases,town workers who spot the items will load them into trucks and cart them away.

"If it's garbage just put it out there," Supervisor john Venditto said. Don't worry about rules, just flag down a truck,, and we'll pick it up.

Meanwhile all public schools will be closed again on Thursday in the Massapequa School district, officials announced.

As of Wednesday afternoon, there were 7,456 LIPA customers without power in Massapequa, 4,798 in Massapequa Park, 8,754 in North Massapequa and 2,767 in East Massapequa.

In Massapequa Park Mayor James Altadonna said that lights started coming back in in some parts of the village at about 10 p.m.Tuesday.

The mayor indicated that LIPA was angry that some of trees were removed in the village without the power company's knowledge, but he fired back at the utility saying, "I haven't seen a LIPA tree removal truck in the 48 hours since the storm. We have to serve our village."

There were still numerous power lines down in the area and most traffic lights are still out.

Town Supervisor John Venditto is urging people to stay indoors as much as possible and exercise caution.

Altadonna once again recommended that village residents avoid going out for Halloween on Monday night. 

A town spokesman urged residents to "use common sense," and said those who do go out should "scale it back" and stay in neighborhoods close to where they live and that are familiar.