Surviving Irene: Trees Hit with a One-Two Punch

A fallen tree laying across Blydenburgh Road is no longer an accident waiting to happen, it's a wreck.

Hauppauge resident Jackie DiChristina stood outside her home on Monday afternoon, supervising her children as they played outside. She watched to make sure they stayed away from a large tree entangled with power lines stretching across the roadway that now has a black Mustang crushed beneath it. 

DiChristina said Hurricane Irene topped three trees on her street. The first fell across Blydenburgh Road, dragging down power lines. The second fell and hit a transformer, knocking out power to two houses - hers and her in-laws.

DiChristina's daughter described the storm as, "All you heard were trees crumbling down, then you saw sparks fly like fireworks."

The street was temporarily roped off by police with yellow caution tape on Sunday, but raised concerns.

"People come flying down the street as if it's a throughway," Marlene DiChristina, Jackie's mother-in-law said.

As she predicted, a male driver in a black Mustang plowed into the downed tree early Sunday morning. There were no reported injuries in the accident, but since then, police have taken the extra step of erecting orange safety barriers to warn approaching motorists.

The DiChristinas are still waiting for power to be restored. The families have borrowed a generator for a refrigerator as the children play board games, I Spy and hold nightly sing-a-longs. 

The children even set up a lemonade stand on Monday, selling glasses to local residents who were walking the neighborhood to tour the damage.

Both Marlene and Jackie said they fear they will be the last to have power restored.

"There's only two houses affected. LIPA has come, but they are probably saying, 'It's only two houses.' We're not very high on their priority list," Marlene said.

Both hope the tree will be removed and power restored before another accident occurs.