A day after the state was hit with severe weather, JCP&L again finds itself with thousands of customers waiting to turn on their lights.
A day after severe thunderstorms pummeled the state, thousands of customers of Jersey Central Power & Light Co. remained in the dark, sparking widespread outrage by many who questioned why it repeatedly takes the utility so long to get the lights back on.
JCP&L said utility crews may not get them all back into service until Thursday evening.
"There was a great deal of damage, which brought down lots of trees, lines and poles," said JCP&L spokesman Ron Morano.Hey @JCP_L how can something like this happen again?
-- Brian Healy (@bnh14) May 16, 2018
How can @PSEGdelivers have double your clients and only have 8900 customers without power?
As many as 108,000 customers of the utility were without power at the height of the storm and as of Wednesday afternoon, 38,000 people still could not turn on their lights.
The worst of the damage was centered in Morris County, where 14,825 customers had no electricity as of 2 p.m., and Sussex County, where another 15,622 customers were affected.
JCP&L has come under fire in the past for the pace of getting power back to customers in the wake of big weather events and many were again getting fed up with the delay on Wednesday.
I did. I also informed them that we've been without power since 430 yesterday and have a disabled person in the house with the machine that requires electricity to help her breathe.
Your representative hung up on me.
-- Viking Dan (@EirulLeinad) May 16, 2018
Earlier this year, a big nor'easter tore through its service territory, knocking out thousands of customers--when the company's service territory got slammed again by a snowstorm. Gov. Phil Murphy later ordered a state investigation into how New Jersey utility companies responded to the winter storms.
JCP&L is often particularly susceptible to outages because there are many trees and wooded areas throughout its service territory, and falling branches are the most common cause for blackouts.
The company serves 1.1 million customers in Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren counties.
Public Service Electric & Gas Co., the state's largest utility with more than 2.2 million electric customers, reported 5,467 people had not power on Wednesday afternoon, with the largest number of outages in Essex County.
@GovMurphy You did a hell of a job getting through to @JCP_L and their storm power restoration process. I know it was a bad storm, but a restoration estimate of May 18th?? Pitiful.
-- Kevin H. (@kevola) May 16, 2018
Morano said the JP&L has 1,400 linemen and other crews working to bring service back, and hopes to get the majority of people back by 11:30 p.m. on Thursday.
"When you do restoration work like this, it's meticulous and you have to do it safely," he said.
Keep track of power outages, from the major utility companies as they happen across the state using the N.J. Outage Tracker below
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Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.