Can an interrupted long rest be treated as a short rest?

[DarkKnightJin]

Going by Crawford's tweet in Sage Advice, I would say that if the party has had enough time to wind down and rest for long enough to 'qualify' for a Short Rest, they get back the resources that recharge on that.

If they swiftly handle what is interrupting their Long Rest, and can go back to sleep, I say they can gaon the benefits of that Long Rest after it's finished.
But give some fluff about the sleep being less restful than they'd have liked it to be. Perhaps impose a minor penalty for the one(s) that went a bit harder than they needed to.

I wouldn't make them start from the top, especially not if they were over halfway through already, and didn't have to relocate.

Last session I played, we had something similar happen. We'd fought a rather disturbing foe, so the sleep was not as restful as we'd have liked it to be.
Result? We regained half of our spent spell slots instead of the full amount.
It wound up not really mattering, but I think it was handled pretty well.