PHOTOS: St. James Still a Mess of Downed Wires

The news is good for most: the Long Island Power Authority is on track to bring 90 percent of customers back online by Wednesday night. But for the other 10 percent, including many devastated neighborhoods in St. James, the wait will go on.

Drive through St. James and you'll see why. North of Woodlawn Avenue, a knot of wires seems to lie in bunches on every corner. Poles are splintered, and wires, streetlamps and transformers hang over trees or sit coiled and broken on lawns.

LIPA has already called the damage in St. James extensive, due to the number of trees and poles that went down, and in its latest updates said it plans to flood the area with crews after it finishes its 90 percent plan on Wednesday.

In the interim, many of those neighborhoods are covered in sawdust, which coats the street like snow in places. Mounds of branches and sawed up trunks line the streets, making them only wide enough for one car to pass in areas. Now that the trees are cleaned up, the crews will be able to fix the wires and poles.

On resident we stopped couldn't contain his frustration, and his comments, laced with expletives pointed at LIPA, just can't be quoted here. The gist: How long can it take to fix a pole?

When Hurricane Sandy hit a week ago, it left nearly a million on Long Island without power. In South Shore areas such and Lindenhurst and Long Beach, a coastal surge leveled neighborhoods. But in St. James, it was the huge, old trees that not only ripped out wires, but smashed homes and cars, and though LIPA has restored power for more than 700,000 customers, St. James will take time, LIPA said.

The news has only gotten worse for locals. A bitter Nor'easter threatens to pound Long Island by Wednesday, and temperatures continue to dip.

Many of the homes are dark in the hard hit areas of St. James, hopefully by folks who went to stay with family or friends who have power. But, the purr of generators still fills the air.