Although the brunt of Superstorm Sandy has passed, many concerns remain for the Town of North Hempstead where downed trees, power outages and possible flood damage remain in its path of destruction.
"While in the long run I think our community is going to be ok, it's going to take some time," said Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman after touring the area early Tuesday. "We need to be given that time by our folks to take some of these emergency measures that we are prepared to do."
After traveling with a Town crew from the operations center in Westbury to Great Neck, Port Washington and through Manhasset at about 6:30 a.m., Kaiman said driving was difficult with traffic lights out and fallen trees blocking some roads.
"A lot of the roads are open but a lot of the streets have damage somewhere along the corridors," said Kaiman to Patch at the Town operation center in Westbury Tuesday. He said real threats remain regarding "wires, traffic, trees and other things that we are not aware of."
A key concern during the next few hours will be the next high tide which comes in at about noon, according to Kaiman.
"People might get the sense of security because it's not raining, the winds aren't knocking down any more trees, although that may still happen, but once the high tide starts coming in, that's going to create further difficulty for emergency personel and create other hazards as well," said Kaiman.
Kaiman, a candidate for the top job at the Long Island Power Authority, said its important that the Town remains a resource to LIPA crews as they try to restore power to thousands of Long Island residents who are without power.
Kaiman had no comment to Patch regarding the timing of the possibility of taking over the LIPA job after the storm.
The 311 operations system remained running at Town Hall through the night after the call center and Internet feed in Westbury was knocked out by the storm just after 5 p.m. Monday.
"We ask people to be patient. We have a dozen or so call takers as we speak right now," said Kaiman.
Kaiman said the Westbury operations center which opened in September was about 90 percent ready for business before the Sandy struck, but the Town decided to open it up and see how it worked while keeping the Town Hall center open as a backup.
"Unfortunately we had some setbacks but because we had the the Town Hall system up and running we were able to get some folks over there," said Kaiman.
For emergency or dangerous situations, residents are encouraged by town officials to call 911. The town's 311 remains up and running.
A reassessment of the North Hempstead situation will come by about noon, according to Kaiman, who plans to remain at the Westbury center throughout the day Tuesday.
