Long Beach Residents Outraged Over Ongoing Power Outages

LONG BEACH, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Heat and humidity have been taking a toll on just about everyone, but perhaps more so in a section of sweltering Long Beach.

Long Beach residents are expressing concerns after what they say has been a month of consistent power outages plaguing the area.

Some residents say the power has gone out 20 times in the last month -- sometimes during peak hours, when businesses and homeowners need it most, WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reported.

As CBS2's Jennifer McLogan reported, power problems meant getting out of the hot house for residents cooling off at a park in Long Beach's west end.

"All summer we've been having blackouts here and there, especially with the heat wave now, a lot of elderly people on the block, a lot of young kids," Luke Amarati said.

A square block of homes and businesses has been suffering outages lasting from 3 to 18 hours without air conditioning or refrigeration.

One restaurant manager said he had to turn customers away after a power outage on a busy Saturday night. Another said he's lost thousands of dollars due to the outages. 

"This past Saturday, there was a wedding party coming back after their wedding, coming back to the restaurant -- I had to contact them and tell them we had no power and they couldn't come back," one restaurant owner said. "It was really upsetting, it upset their plans and they were not happy with us."

Robert Johnson owns the Cabana -- one of the affected restaurants -- it plunged into darkness multiple times in the midst of mealtime.

"More or less bedlam. People had to get up and leave, really tough on the business. It is a scary situation," he said.

It's the section of the city that was covered in sand when the bay met the ocean, and nearly every property flooded. Now homes are lifted and enlarged.

"It's an overload on the power grid, because FEMA required them to lift their houses. They went from window units to central air," homeowner Patrick Arcese said.

Old transformers and lines couldn't handle the new summertime surges.

PSEG said they are aware of the problem and are working to get it fixed Thursday by replacing a faulty transformer.

The sun baked down on sweltering workers installing brand new transformers with a surplus of replacement wires to split the load.

"Superstorm Sandy blew through. It took out the electric system in that area. There's been a lot of mitigation work that we've done to make the system stronger and better, taking some time to get to all of it," PSEG spokesman Jeffrey Weir said.

The company is telling residents to file a claim if they are looking to get their money back.

Con Edison dealt with its own slew of power outages in the New York City metro area due to the recent high temperatures sweeping the Tri-State this summer.

A power outage at the MTA's RailControl Center caused extensive delays across multiple lines in the New York City subway system Wednesday.

Around 1,100 residents in East Harlem without power over the weekend, leaving many in a sticky situation. Some residents didn't get power back until 5 p.m.