Five days after Tropical Storm Isaias blasted through the Garden State, Jersey Central Power & Light said on Sunday it had restored power to more than 97 percent of customers knocked offline by the storm.
That’s not good enough, according to some angry public officials.
“Enough is enough. Every time there is a storm, Morris County residents lose power for days. JCP&L it’s time to get your act together. New leadership. New strategy,” Morris County Freeholder Tayfun Selen said over the weekend
Selen demanded the resignation of Charles Jones, president and CEO of First Energy’s parent company, First energy Corp.; and refunds of July and August utility bills to Morris residents.
Blasting JCP&L’s storm response as “abysmal,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.) cited a pattern stretching back years in a letter Friday to Jones and JCP&L President Jim Fakult.
Pallone questioned JCP&L’s management, infrastructure investments, and communications. The congressman, who represents parts of Middlesex and Monmouth counties, noted that the utility has said power for some customers may not be restored until Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020 — a week after the storm.
“This is simply unacceptable, especially given summer temperatures and the fact that many people are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pallone wrote in his letter.
“It is particularly egregious that JCP&L is once again failing to communicate with its customers in any meaningful way…The company’s failure to communicate in real time with meaningful, accurate information has been an ongoing problem and only seems to get worse with each passing storm season,” Pallone said, requesting answers by Aug. 21.
Acknowledging the frustrations of officials and customers, JCP&L spokesman Cliff Cole said customers can file claims with JCP&L, which will be reviewed on an individual basis.
“However, losses and damages resulting from natural events such as tropical storms are not typically reimbursed as part of our claims process. This includes damages from the loss of power, as well as personal items such as food. We encourage our customers to work through their homeowner’s or renter’s insurance to seek coverage of any storm losses,” Cole said.
The utility has worked hard in New Jersey to trim trees–falling limbs brought down power lines across the state–and that program will continue asking residents for permission to prune trees on private property, Cole continued.
But outages may be unavoidable in an age of violent weather, he suggested.
“The storms that have hit us in the last 10 years or so have been unprecedented in their intensity and the damage they have caused,” Cole saud.
“Since 2016, we’ve been enhancing the infrastructure. It will take some time. But it’s impossible to build infrastructure that Mother Nature can’t destroy or damage in these kinds of storms.”
As of 7:30 pm Sunday, JCP&L’s website reported 1,600 Morris County customers still needed electricity. In Morristown, 261 customers remained out; in Morristown Township, 175, and in Morris Plains, fewer than five.
“At this stage in the restoration effort, our crews are addressing many localized issues and restoring individual customers. This requires crews to travel to each individual location. This is the most time-consuming, labor intensive and complex part of service restoration,” the utility said in a statement.
JCP&L added:
“If your neighbor’s power is on and yours is not, the problem may be isolated to your individual service. Customers who are without power are encouraged to call 1-888-LIGHTSS (1-888-544-4877) to report their outage or click the ‘Report Outage’ link on www.firstenergycorp.com.”
Statewide, more than 9,000 employees of JCP&L, subsidiaries of parent company First Energy, and mutual aid partners were working to restore the last 7,000 affected customers. Initially, 788,000 of JCPL’s 1.1 million customers were impacted by Isaias.
According to JCP&L, utility crews have replaced more than 200,000 feet of wire, repaired or replaced more than 500 poles and 2,200 crossarms, and worked through more than 700 closed roads to restore service.
This story has been updated to include comments from a JCP&L spokesman.
