On Newtown Lane: Auto Accident, Explosions, Outages

Newtown Lane was the scene of two near-tragedies in the twilight hours on Monday.

Just minutes after a 4:43 p.m. car accident in which an East Hampton Middle School student was seriously injured, an underground Long Island Lighting Company cable faulted. The resulting explosion blew two manhole covers, one of which shot into the air a few feet in front of Police Chief Glen Stonemetz's car as he was racing to the scene of the auto accident.

Thirteen-year-old Jessica Dolan of Wainscott was listed in stable condition at Stony Brook University Medical Center yesterday, with three fractures of the skull. According to a family friend, doctors took a series of M.R.I.s, CAT scans, X-rays, and blood tests on Tuesday, trying to determine the cause of slight bleeding and hearing loss in one ear.

However, said the friend, the eighth-grader, who is the youngest member of the East Hampton High School gymnastic team, is "coming through all right." She was expected to be released from the intensive care unit yesterday.

The friend, Robin Metz, who lives with Jessica and her mother, Monika Dolan, said the girl was "conscious, talking; she hurts, and that's a good sign." Ms. Metz said Jessica's motor skills appear intact. The girl reportedly does not remember the accident.

No Charges

Police said Jessica, whose father is Fred Dolan of New York City, was run ning across Newtown Lane just east of the railroad tracks when she was struck by the car and thrown onto its hood. The driver, Norman Altstedter of East Hampton, 76, continued on another 150 feet, police said, past Sher rill Road, with the girl on the hood, until she fell off and the car stop ped.

Chief Stonemetz said the car was not speeding, and that drugs and alcohol had been ruled out as contributing causes. Mr. Altstedter was not injured, but was reported to be badly upset over the incident. No charges are expected to be filed.

Police impounded Mr. Altstedter's Ford Taurus station wagon for a safety inspection, which revealed nothing, said the chief.

Jessica was taken first to South ampton Hospital and then by Medivac helicopter to Stony Brook, after Officer Robert Scott Aldrich and then ambulance volunteers administered first aid at the scene. Mr. Aldrich was stopped at the Newtown Lane-Railroad Avenue stop sign when the accident happened; he heard the crash and then turned around to see its aftermath.

Smoke From Manholes

Jessica was apparently meeting a young friend, Jamie Avoletta, who witnessed the accident. Jamie, who moved to East Hampton just recently, gave police a statement yesterday.

East Hampton Fire Department Chief James Dunlop drove the ambulance to the scene. Then, at 4:52 p.m., a call came over his radio that smoke was escaping from manhole covers farther east on Newtown Lane.

There had been scattered power outages up and down the lane starting about an hour earlier.

Bob Giovanelli, coordinator of volunteers for the Hamptons International Film Festival, called The Star to report that he and fellow workers had heard a boom and seen smoke from their office on Newtown Mews, off Newtown Lane.

A manhole near the Middle School blew its cover in front of Chief Stonemetz's car. The chief said it shot "three feet in the air and [then] flames came shooting up." He heard "cracking, popping, and snapping," he said, and tried to get by as fast as he could.

Street Shut Down

All traffic to, from, and on Newtown Lane was shut down between Race Lane and Main Street. The street was not reopened until around 7 p.m.

Store and restaurant owners and their customers, cars, and pedestrians were evacuated from Newtown Lane.

Some store personnel were called back to the scene after the street had been emptied to guide firefighters to store basements. Chiefs Stonemetz and Dunlop said there was concern that explosions might occur in basements, though none did.

The last time there was an underground LILCO explosion, also on Newtown Lane, a fire was narrowly averted in the basement of the East Hampton Hardware store.

Power Outages

Although reports of power outages had begun coming in about an hour before the car accident, the LILCO crews sent out to investigate did not report a possible emergency to police. A member of the Village Police Department put in a call for the Fire Department after he saw smoke escaping from the manhole covers, Chief Stonemetz said.

Paul Conroy, the general manager of radio station WEHM, said the Pantigo Road station had lost power between 3:55 and 4:50 p.m., and was back on the air by 5:15 p.m. The station's emergency generator was be ing serviced at the time, Mr. Conroy said.

A LILCO spokeswoman, Steph anie Gossin, said yesterday the cause of the incident was still under investigation. She said 144 customers were affected by the outage, with 100 losing their power for 76 minutes, the remainder for 117 minutes.

Trying to put a positive spin on the incident, she said that had it happened a year ago, before LILCO began upgrading its system, about 650 customers would have been affected. The utility is in the process of installing a new 13,000-volt system in the village business district, and only those still on the old 4,000-volt system were affected.

Crews shut down the old system, which apparently caused the fault.

The utility company provided a generator to the East Hampton Middle School, though its power was shut off temporarily by LILCO crews at about 8 last night.

Ms. Gossin said one business had reported equipment damage resulting from the power outage, but declined to say which one.

Chief Criticizes LILCO

Despite Chief Stonemetz's account and those of other witnesses, Ms. Gossin said the manhole covers that blew rose from the ground by only a few inches.

The chief questioned the competence of the LILCO crews. He told a worker to "get this thing shut down," he said, and the answer was, "I did, but it's not responding." Chief Stonemetz thinks the crew did not realize at first that the system needed to be shut down at two ends.

The police chief also offered a guess that LILCO would "be there for weeks" determining the cause and fixing the problem.

LILCO crews were able to get inside the manholes Tuesday afternoon and had begun to make repairs to the older system, Ms. Gossin reported. She said crews would work around the clock until repairs were complete and the cause of the electrical fault was determined.

Mayor On The Scene

East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., who was on the scene Monday, met the next morning with LILCO officials. He said he had demanded that Village Hall be kept aware of any information as it emerged.

The mayor has worked hard with LILCO officials over the years, pushing for the system upgrade and acting as a mediator of sorts between unhappy shopkeepers and the utility. He said Tuesday the company was "totally at a loss as to why this happened."

Chief Stonemetz praised the members of his department, Chief Dunlop, and the members of the Fire Department's fire police, who had a tough job stopping traffic coming from all different directions.

Chief Stonemetz said he had "a few moments of anxiousness" during the incident, agreeing with Chief Dun lop that public safety was the big gest concern.

Mr. Dunlop said yesterday that everyone who was evacuated was "real good about getting out."

He owed an apology, he said, to Tom Johnson, the owner of Sam's restaurant, for failing to alert him when the road was reopened. Sam's lost some business as a result.

Mr. Johnson was angry, said Chief Dunlop, "and he's right. He had reason to be annoyed. . . . I just didn't think of it."