As utility workers began preparing to replace two fried transformers beneath a South Street sidewalk, Morristown Administrator Michael Rogers had one word for the recurring underground electrical problems:
Ridiculous.
“It’s ridiculous, as far as this happening again and again,” he said at town hall on Friday, less than 24 hours after a smoky fire in a utility vault shut down a portion of South Street.
“We still have no answers as to what happened last year (when an underground fire preceded an explosion at the municipal library), or as to the infrastructure improvements so far” by Jersey Central Power & Light.
“These things have been becoming more frequent in nature, with no answers beyond ‘this stuff happens.’ We’re wondering why it happens so frequently in Morristown,” Michael said.
A call to JCP&L for comment has not been returned.
Thursday afternoon’s smoky fire was followed by power outages to about 1,700 JCP&L customers. As of lunchtime on Friday, Michael said power had been restored to just about everyone except the Walgreen’s, Rite Aid and Coldwell Banker storefronts–which share the sidewalk where the burned-out transformers were buried–and some offices on Madison Avenue in Morris Township.
South Street was reopened to traffic, but heading toward Madison Avenue it was funneled from two lanes to one lane on Friday.
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Employees at the Walgreen’s pharmacy were hoping to re-open on generator power by 2 pm. They were told it could be three days before regular electricity is restored.
Walgreen’s was referring customers to its Florham Park store (973-805-7420) to fill prescriptions. Rite Aid was sending its customers to branches on Park Avenue in Morristown and Ridgedale Avenue in Cedar Knolls.
Robin Buchanan of Morristown tried to come to Rite Aid on Thursday to get antibiotics for a tick bite, but police turned her away. “They said it was dangerous to walk here,” she said.
According to Michael Rogers, JCP&L has five circuits that serve Morristown from a substation on Ridgedale Avenue. The fire knocked out two of those circuits. JCP&L was able to reroute most of its service to the other circuits, he said.
But if one more circuit had failed–a possibility, due to heavy demand from air conditioner use in Thursday’s intense heat–the entire downtown could have gone dark, the administrator said.
JCP&L officials told the town that the underground damage this time actually was worse than the damage that preceded last year’s library explosion, Michael said.
He expressed faith in the state Board of Public Utilities to get to the bottom of the library explosion. The BPU has said it awaits findings from the library’s insurer, JCP&L and Public Service Electric & Gas. Both utilities have denied responsibility for the explosion. Two wings of the facility remain closed in the wake of that blast.
The cause of a 1994 explosion that shuttered the library for six weeks never has been disclosed, either.
You can’t make this stuff up! Where is the accountability here?
Is anyone getting annoyed by these incidents? Where is the outrage?
Inevitably, somebody is going to get seriously hurt during one these fires and/or explosions. These incidents have been going on for over twenty years now!
One recent post on this blog mentioned that a major utility probably will blow up the library, for a third time. God forbid that happens.
This is like deja vu all over again! Eventually… and it’s only a matter of time, JCP&L will blow up the library again (which will be the third time) Run to the hills!