NJ Power Outages May Last Until Tuesday, Companies Say

NEW JERSEY — More than 451,000 homes across New Jersey remained without power on Thursday in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaias, and power company officials now are saying it may be Tuesday before all service is restored.

Power company crews, bolstered by additional workers from several states and Canada, made gains in restoring power overnight. More than 527,000 customers have had service restored as of Thursday afternoon from the 977,000 who were out on Wednesday — for those without power, the delays are frustrating.

Towns in the southern part of the state were well on their way to being fully restored, with fewer than 1,000 homes each remaining out in Salem and Gloucester counties.

Three counties were lagging in the restoration efforts. Monmouth County still had more than 92,000 homes without service Thursday, the highest number of remaining outages in the state. Morris County had more than 81,000, and Bergen had more than 69,000.

The estimate of Tuesday — which the companies say is a worst-case scenario — for service restoration has angered residents all over.

"This does not sit well with me at all," a Manchester resident who lives in Crestwood Village wrote on Patch. "Going without power for 8 days in a 55 and over community for the reasons they are starting is UNACCEPTABLE." Read more: No Power Until Tuesday? JCP&L Says Some May See Service Sooner

Residents who are dependent on electricity for medical or mobility needs should call authorities in their town, the state Office of Emergency Management said.

Power company officials say the extent of the damage is the issue.

Orange & Rockland electric company, which serves parts of Bergen, Passaic and Sussex counties, said the storm damage is almost as bad as that from Superstorm Sandy. It still had damage at 625 sites in those counties to repair.

"O&R estimates that today's storm damage will rank second only to Superstorm Sandy — at 250,000 customers affected — in O&R history," the company said.

Jersey Central Power & Light, which serves 1.13 million customers in 13 counties, shared photos on Twitter of damaged transformers, uprooted trees and downed power lines. It has nearly 6,000 workers, including out-of-state crews, to fix more than 8,000 individual damage sites.

JCP&L had 780,000 customers without power at the peak of the Isaias outages, but had reduced that to 289,000 as of 4 p.m. Thursday.

"New Jersey literally got whacked," said Joseph Fiordaliso, president of the state Board of Public Utilities. "The entire state was ravaged by this quick-moving storm."

New Jersey accounted for 1.4 million homes out of 3.5 million across 14 states that were left without power, Fiordaliso said Wednesday. And the 1.4 million was just shy of the 1.7 million homes that were without power following Superstorm Sandy. After Sandy, it took more than two weeks for many people to have their power restored.

Atlantic City Electric had more than 3,600 sites yet to be repaired.

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PSE&G officials, who called in more than 1,700 additional workers from out of state, said their crews are out assessing damage and working to restore service as quickly as possible. PSE&G had more than 9,100 outage sites to repair.

"Concerned you haven’t seen a PSE&G truck in your area? Sometimes the damage may not be near your home or we may make use of personal vehicles w/no markings when assessing damage," the company said.

Multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms are forecast across New Jersey from Friday morning through Friday evening, the National Weather Service said. That could slow restoration if they are accompanied by strong winds.

"The safety of our employees and customers is our top priority and we are doing everything we can to safely restore power as quickly as possible," said Clifford Cole, a JCP&L spokesman. Crews cannot work in the bucket trucks when winds exceed 35 mph hour, he said.

PSE&G has set up comfort centers with free ice and water, and JCP&L has made arrangements with a number of grocery stores to provide ice and water to customers who do not have power.

With reporting by Russ Crespolini and Montana Samuels, Patch staff

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