Now LIPA’s chief has something in common with thousands of Long Island residents — they’re out of power.
Interim CEO Mike Hervey — who still has 45,000 total customers without electricity after Hurricane Sandy — will step down at the end of this year.
“On behalf of the Board of Trustees I have accepted his resignation, with regret,” said LIPA Chairman Howard Steinberg.
Hervey resigned the same day Gov. Cuomo authorized a commission to “investigate the response, preparation, and management of New York’s power utility companies with major storms hitting the state over the past two years, including Hurricanes Sandy and Irene, and Tropical Storm Lee,” according to a statement from the governor. The commission can issue subpoenas and examine witnesses under oath.
AP
LIVING IN THE DARK AGES: Virginia Portella lugs a cart full of groceries up to her third-floor apartment in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Houses yesterday as the elevator remains out and residents are forced to live without electricity more than two weeks after Hurricane Sandy struck.
LIPA customers aren’t the only ones still in the dark.
Neighborhoods and buildings across the region are still without electricity 16 days after Sandy struck and utility companies are sticking some of the blame on powerless residents.
About 424,000 customers in the Rockaways, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, Staten Island, the Lower East Side, Midland Beach, Coney Island, Nassau, Suffolk and New Jersey still need juice, utility officials said yesterday.
About 39,000 of those outages, mostly Con Ed and LIPA customers, could get power, but an electrician needs to inspect their home equipment first.
It’s a slow and confusing process.
Richard Aloi, 57, a Staten Island landlord, had power restored to two of his Midland Avenue buildings yesterday, but not before he shelled out $400 to have an electrician inspect four meters that he said were not even touched by water.
“They’re afraid to get sued — they misled me on everything!” Aloi said.
In Manhattan, Knickerbocker Village residents are still freezing as they wait for electricity to get turned back on after flooding in the basement.
“Some days it’s warmer outside than it is in the house,” said Debbie Felice, 43, an MTA station supervisor, who lives in the Lower East Side facility.
“It’s like we’ve been forgotten about over here. It’s tough trying to get up and go to work when it’s freezing in the house and there’s no hot water, there’s no heat. I still have no electricity in the apartment either. It’s terrible.”
Con Ed has 4,000 customers waiting to have their homes inspected.
And those numbers grow considerably when Con Ed factors in affected public housing complexes where a “customer” can be hundreds of residents.
As of Sunday, 30,000 New York City Housing Authority residents didn’t have power — though that number has dropped since then.
Still, a Con Ed executive declared yesterday, “We essentially have power up in all areas.
“The only issues that exist now is if customers are able to take the power from us,” spokesman Bob McGee said.
As for LIPA, 10,000 people in Nassau and Suffolk still have outages, and another 35,000 in the Rockaways, Nassau and Suffolk need inspections.
And in New Jersey, only 78 percent of 1.7 million PSE&G customers have power restored — 375,000 remain in the dark due to downed lines.
Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the city will open seven centers in Far Rockaway, Gravesend, Coney Island, Staten Island, Red Hook, Breezy Point and Throggs Neck-Pelham to connect residents and businesses with financial, health, environmental, nutritional, FEMA and residential services.
“There are a lot of residents who are going to be without power for a long time. Rather than complain about it or even write about it, we’re trying to do something about it,” Bloomberg said.
As for NYCHA houses, he said they “see the finish line” for power.
And Council Speaker Christine Quinn proposed a $20 billion initiative to protect the city from storm surges, with a sea wall, bulkheads, dunes, wetlands and floodgates.
In other developments:
* Bloomberg said gas rationing will go on for at least five more days.
* The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel opened one lane for cars.
* Alternate-side-of-the-street parking regulations will be reinstated in most areas.
* Nassau County police are investigating an assault of a Florida utility worker — here to help Sandy relief efforts — who was beaten outside an East Meadow restaurant as he got out of his truck.
Tomorrow, President Obama will visit many areas without power, such as Staten Island, the Rockaways and Nassau.
“He should definitely come [here],” said Brenda Pratt, 49, of Coney Island. “This is a disaster. He should look at what Sandy did to us. I gave him my vote, I want to see him.
Additional reporting by David Seifman, Sally Goldenberg, Liz Sadler and Kieran Crowley
leonard.greene@nypost.com
