What Happened
A pickup truck crashed on Montauk Highway in Copiague on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, taking down several lamp poles and a utility pole and forcing the closure of the roadway between Hawkins Avenue and Howard Boulevard, News 12 Long Island reported at 5:12 p.m.
The pickup suffered heavy front-end damage and a broken windshield, according to News 12 Long Island. Debris spread across the roadway. The downed poles left a visible gap along the highway’s lighting infrastructure in that block.
PSEG crews were on scene assessing the damage to the utility pole as of the time of the report. No outages in the surrounding neighborhood were confirmed in the initial filing, though PSEG’s presence indicated the downed line required evaluation before the road could fully reopen.
Michael Licata, who said he was in a building adjacent to the scene when the crash occurred, described hearing the impact before seeing the aftermath. “I was in the back of the building over there and all I heard was a big boom,” Licata told News 12. “Then I came out front and saw this big mess over here with these poles and lights missing, and everything else.”
Police had not stated what caused the crash or whether the driver or anyone else was injured as of the 5:12 p.m. update.
Location & Road Context
Montauk Highway runs east-west through southern Nassau and Suffolk counties and carries heavy local and seasonal traffic through communities including Copiague. The closed block between Hawkins Avenue and Howard Boulevard sits in a commercial and residential mixed-use stretch of the corridor.
According to Long Island Traffic’s incident registry, Montauk Highway has 10 recorded incidents so far in 2026. The most recent prior fatal crash on the corridor occurred April 15, 2026, in East Moriches. Tuesday’s crash is the 10th recorded incident on this corridor in the current calendar year.
Broader Impact
PSEG’s on-scene response to the downed utility pole signals the closure could extend beyond the immediate police investigation window. Utility pole replacements on active commercial corridors typically require both PSEG crews to restore the line and highway crews to reset the lamp standards before the block returns to normal traffic flow. No reopening time had been announced as of the 5:12 p.m. report.