Local officials are running out of phrases to describe their frustration with Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) as 10 days removed from Hurricane Sandy, just under half of Pequannock remains without power.
On Tuesday, Mayor Rich Phelan said that about 44 percent of the township has no electricity — according to JCP&L's website, that equates to about 1,965 customers — and residents' patience has run out, especially because they're not seeing utility trucks working in the streets.
Weary, frustrated citizens have been calling, said Phelan, but he is no longer sure what to say.
"We don't have a magic number that we call JCP&L on; it's the same phone number that everybody else has," he said. "It breaks my heart to tell them that there's nothing I can tell (the residents)…there's absolutely nothing."
Although he's participated in several conference calls with the JCP&L officials, he called them "a joke," and berated the utility for offering information that has "absolutely no local connection" to what is going on in the streets.
"I don't want to hear how many linemen you have in the State of New Jersey — I want to hear when you're going to get to Sunset (Road), when you're going to get to Jackson (Avenue)," he said. "This has just gotten ridiculous, beyond ridiculous, and there's no information, there's nothing."
He was told that there would be another 1,200 homes restored by Tuesday night, but said that not one had been brought on-line.
JCP&L spokesman Mark Nitowski said that with 51,000 customers still out of power, Morris County is "one of the hardest hit" of the utility's service areas, and that a large amount of tree damage was to blame. And, although he said that the utility has brought power back to about 944,000 of its 1.2 million customers in NJ, that statistic likely provides little solace to those sleeping in the cold, dark houses in places like the Village.
There was nothing in particular about Pequannock that was slowing down the restoration process, he said, but unfortunately, "no matter what storm hits, there's always going to be the one area, the one individual customer…that are the last ones to be restored, and they're going to be frustrated and upset."
However, he still could not offer information about the township, such as what streets will get electricity first or when, and said only that the utility is planning to have "the vast majority" of its customers restored by Wednesday night.
"We appreciate the continued patience…it's just a process to get to that point," he said.
When the outage ends, Phelan said, he's going to be pressing for changes in the way the township deals with the utility. He suggested Morris County municipalities withhold payments to JCP&L to force it to recognize their anger over the affair.
He also wants a point of contact that town officials can call for specific information about their region, and wants a better understanding of the power grid as a whole.
"We're going to actively go after this," he said.
Nitowski said that there is an area manager that handles the region, but Phelan remarked that the rep had offered no local information, only the same responses that the power company as a whole was offering.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/177803071_Pequannock_officials__residents_angry_over_slow-moving_utility.html
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