As storm passes, massive cleanup begins

The worst may be behind us, but now comes the hard part: cleaning up.

A nor’easter that dumped as much as two feet of snow in some areas is expected to clear the area by late morning, with a few snow showers lingering through 3 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. A northwest wind is expected to be sustained around 24-28 mph. Gusts can be as high as 39 mph.

Roads remained mostly impassable throughout the East End Saturday morning.

The highest snow total so far reported by the National Weather Service was 30.9 inches in Upton.

A report from Shelter Island Highway Superintendent Jay Card Jr. Saturday morning said at 2 a.m. highway crews had almost every road cleared of light snow.

“But then another foot dropped on,” he said.

Mr. Card estimated roads may be cleared by around 2 p.m. today.

“Our guys have been up since 7 yesterday morning so I’ve got to send some home to sleep,” he said.

Shelter Island Fire Chief John D’Amato said it was mostly a quiet night with only one call early in the evening. A tree came down bringing a live wire with it and was blocking Cobbetts Lane.

“The wire was burning at the side of the road when we got there,” the chief said.

LIPA crews, which had stayed on the Island, quickly arrived along with a highway crew and the situation was taken care of with no problems, the chief said.

There were 102 outages reported by LIPA on the Island as of 10 a.m. The estimated restoration is 1 p.m. today. An error on the map originally said 1 a.m. Sunday.

With Joe Werkmeister