What Happened
A crash on the eastbound Long Island Expressway shut down all eastbound lanes at Exit 49N on Sunday, September 13, 2026, according to News 12 Long Island. The collision occurred near Exit 50. Suffolk County police say the crash was reported at approximately 6 a.m.
News 12 Long Island published its first update at 8:28 a.m., placing the lane closure roughly two and a half hours after the initial call came in. The full closure affected all eastbound travel lanes at the Exit 49N interchange. No vehicle types, number of vehicles involved, injuries, or cause of the crash had been released as of that update.
Suffolk County police confirmed the closure to News 12 but had not issued a formal press release by the time of publication. No fatalities, injury counts, or charges were included in the initial report.
Location & Road Context
Exit 49N on the eastbound LIE feeds traffic toward Route 110 North in Melville. The crash near Exit 50 — which serves Round Swamp Road in Old Bethpage — placed the collision squarely in one of the expressway’s denser interchange clusters between Exits 48 and 51 in western Suffolk County. Drivers diverted at Exit 49N faced surface-street congestion on Route 110 during the Sunday morning period.
According to Long Island Traffic’s incident registry, the LIE corridor has recorded 97 incidents in the past 30 days and 468 so far in 2026. This crash is among three separate I-495 incidents logged on September 13 alone, including a major crash on the Long Island Expressway I-495 HOV Lane the same morning. The most recent prior fatal crash on this corridor occurred on August 26, 2026.
Broader Impact
The full eastbound shutdown at Exit 49N arrived on a Sunday morning when flash flood watches were also active across Long Island, per concurrent News 12 reporting at 8:28 a.m. Drivers rerouted to Route 110 or Northern State Parkway faced compounding delays from both the closure and wet road conditions. No estimated reopening time had been issued by Suffolk County police as of the last published update.