Privacy update — September 18, 2026: Identifying details have been removed under our victim privacy policy.
What Happened
A crash shut all eastbound lanes of the Long Island Expressway near Exit 49N in Melville early Sunday morning, September 13, 2026, according to Newsday.
Suffolk County Police logged the initial report at 5:50 a.m. Investigators were on scene as of the first update published at 8:04 a.m., the department confirmed. No vehicle descriptions, injury reports, or cause of the crash had been released at that point.
Traffic monitoring site 511NY confirmed the full closure of the eastbound lanes. All eastbound LIE traffic was diverted onto the service road alongside the expressway, per Newsday. The diversion was in effect while Suffolk County Police worked the scene.
Location & Road Context
Exit 49N sits in Melville along the I-495 corridor in western Suffolk County. The LIE carries some of the heaviest weekend eastbound volume on Long Island, particularly on Sunday mornings when eastbound traffic builds toward the Hamptons.
According to Long Island Traffic’s incident registry, the LIE has logged 98 recorded incidents in the past 30 days and 469 so far in 2026, making this one of the most active corridors on the island. The most recent prior fatal crash on this corridor occurred August 26, 2026. Two other crashes on I-495 were recorded the same morning: a minor incident and a major incident in the HOV lane.
For real-time conditions on the LIE corridor, check the Long Island Traffic live map.