Long Island Residents Brace For Impact From Next Nor'easter
EAST PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- The coming winter storm could cause problems for residents on Long Island.
People in Nassau and Suffolk Counties hope it's not their turn to get wallopped.
As the third nor'easter in 13 days bears down on the Tri-State Area, municipalities are rotating weary crews and readying them for the next go-round.
With Suffolk County in the bullseye, help was arriving Monday from Upstate to plow the Long Island Expressway. DOT Regional Director Joseph Brown says they'll have more than 300 large-duty plows at their disposal when the storm hits.
County Executive Steve Bellone says residents should carefully monitor the forecast with snow beginning overnight.
The Town of Hempstead just finished clearing 170 downed trees and now, crews are prepping 200 trucks and 9,000 tons of sand.
"We're ready for spring to get here," Town Supervisor Laura Gillen said. "We're not there yet."
With wet snow and high winds predicted, PSEG Long Island was busy performing system checks. In the last two storms, the utility company restored 220,000 customers relatively quickly -- in sharp contrast to utilities to the north where residents were without power for days and enraged by botched communication.
East Patchogue residents were bracing for even more flooding in the wake of Tuesday's storm, which is expected to be mostly a coastal event. They have gotten pretty used to flooding, but not like what they saw after the storms on March 1 and last Wednesday. Drains are still overflowing and sections of certain streets remain closed off.
MORE: Residents Bracing For More Snow As Another Storm Moves In
And it's not over yet.
"Listen to it. You can hear it. It sounds like ocean," resident Linda Tripodi said.
The sound Tripodi was referring to was her neighbor pumping water away from his home. And after the two most recent storms, she's been hearing it a lot.
"Every time it rains the water tides come in and they pump their houses and the overflow, it creeps up the street," Tripodi said.
Storms and pumping water are nothing new to Tripodi, but her neighborhood got slammed two times in less than a week.
"I've been here for a few years and over the last few years it's gotten worse," Tripodi said.
Her video shows just how high that water rose this week. Her neighborhood is still recovering and is now bracing for a third storm.
"It makes me nervous," Tripodi said.
CBS2's Liverman reached out to the town's highway department and he was told the town built a bioretention area back in 2015. It also repaired and replaced some pipelines, but said the water table is rising and it has nowhere to go.
Tripodi actually told Liverman it's getting so bad she's thinking of moving, and added she might not be the only one.
