Power Outage In Parts Of LI Sparked By Car Crash: PSEG

LONG ISLAND, NY — Hundreds of Long Islanders turned to social media Tuesday night to report a brief loss of power that impacted a large swath of the region at the same time.

Elizabeth Flagler, head of external and internal communications at PSEG Long Island, said Wednesday morning that the outage affected 836 customers in the Riverhead area.

At 11:11 a.m., there was a motor vehicle crash on Roanoke Avenue in Riverhead, Flagler said. A car hit a pole, causing a transmission line to trip, she said.

"The majority of the customers were picked up in under 33 minutes; 126 customers were restored in about two hours, she said.

As for those who felt the brief loss of power, Flagler said: "It is possible others may have seen a quick blip during a switch. It would only have been momentary, if anything. It wouldn’t register as an outage," she said.

According to PSEG Long Island Tuesday night, a "circuit knocked out," and a "breaker tripped" on a transmission line, but the exact cause of the outage was not known.

Residents from the East End and points west said their lights flickered at 11:11 p.m.; some reported highways that went black.

One man said the china in his cabinet was "clanging" and others reported that all their electronics were rebooting.