Long Islanders ready for weekend winter storm

Long Island residents and municipalities were busy Friday gearing up for this weekend's winter storm.

News 12 Staff

Jan 18, 2019, 6:05 PM

Updated 1,923 days ago

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Long Island residents and municipalities were busy Friday gearing up for this weekend's winter storm.
At ShopRite in Plainview, customers stocked up on essentials to ride out the storm. They bought things like chips, dip, milk, bread, eggs and much more.
Leteria Cadena, who works as a nurse in Glen Cove, said she's on call all weekend. She said she has a shovel in the car to combat the potential treacherous travel conditions.
Katie Anderson said she's ready for whatever Mother Nature has in store this weekend. The Greenlawn resident grabbed supplies at a Stop & Shop and was all set to hunker down at home with her 8-month-old son, Matthew.
But it was all business at the Town of Huntington highway yard in Dix Hills. About 300 trucks will be hitting the roads as soon as the flakes start falling. Highway Superintendent Kevin Orelli said crews will have to finish plowing before the flash freeze that's expected to come on Sunday. The town had about 20,000 tons of salt and sand ready to go.
At the town's operations center, workers can see where each plow truck is located and can even see which streets have been plowed and how many times they've been passed over.
For PSEG Long Island, the concern was snow and ice breaking tree branches and weighing down power lines. The utility said it's been preparing year-round, implementing new technology to detect outages more quickly and trimming trees away from power lines.
To keep its operations running smoothly, the Long Island Rail Road said it has de-icer trains ready to remove ice on the third rail. The railroad also said it added staff to help respond to weather-related issues.
Meanwhile, at an Ace Hardware store in Copiague, manager Juan Torres stocked shelves with ice melt and shovels in anticipation of big crowds as the storm inched closer.
South Shore residents like Maureen Covais, of Lindenhurst, braced for possible coastal flooding from the storm -- always reminded of the destruction caused by Superstorm Sandy.
A winter storm watch was issued for parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties from Saturday through Sunday. The storm is expected to bring a sloppy mixture of snow, sleet and rain, followed by a frigid blast that could lead to frozen roadways and dangerous ice.


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