Not even the governor could get clear answers from JCP & L about power outages for his own house.
“The general answer was that you will be back in service on Tuesday,” God said. Phil Murphy on Friday at his latest briefing on coronavirus in Trenton.
The force at Murphy’s Middletown home was restored Thursday night at 9:30 p.m.
But if the governor can not get an answer, what about the rest of us?
Murphy said that although many of the 1.4 million people who lost power to Tropical Storm Isaiah are back online, some 310,000 customers are still in the dark – and two-thirds of those customers belong to JCP & L.
He said communication was part of the problem and that residents “should have a realistically clear sense of what it looks like.”
Storm after storm, for well over a decade, JCP & L has come under fire for a lack of communication with customers about power repair. It is no different for this storm. Mayors smoke. Officials in Hunterdon County are seething.
And the utility acknowledges that it could have done better.
“We are always looking for ways to improve,” said JCP&L spokesman Cliff Cole. At the moment, the information is there for people (on the JCP & L website), but we could possibly explore what to drill and make more consistent with specific cities and counties. That’s one thing we could look at. “
Complaints about state utilities – and specifically JCP & L – are nothing new.
During Hurricane Sandy, 2.7 million utilities lost power at the height of the storm and it took more than two weeks to fully recover.
This followed the Hurricane Irene, in which nearly 930,000 homes and businesses lost power, some for more than a week in August 2011.
In 2014, PSE & G, the state’s largest utility, received approval from the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) for a $ 1.2 billion infrastructure upgrade, while JCP & L said it would exceed $ 250 million invest to prevent outages.
Still, in March 2018, after back-to-back nor’easters, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses went without power for as long as 11 days, Murphy called for a state investigation.
The report of the State Board of Public Utilities, released in May 2018, said that JCP & L was needed to improve its communication with customers and their storm response.
Customers had complained in public hearings that representatives of outside customer service did not understand how devastating the storms were and they could not track where crews were deployed.
Cole, the JCP & L spokesman, said all of the company’s customer call centers are now located in New Jersey. But complaints about communication persisted.
NO COMMUNICATION, NO ANSWERS
It is the height of frustration for people with refrigerators full of spoiled food, no air conditioning and limited internet, while more people than ever are trying to work from home.
For some, the stakes are higher.
Karin Abromaitis of Quakertown said Friday that she has been without power since Tuesday. She said she has an adult daughter with ALS who is dependent on various electrically powered technology and machines.
‘We have an interesting way of tackling together. Kind of a cross between Swiss Family Robinson and Little House on the Prairie, ”said Abromaitis.
Belmar’s Katlyn Myrick said she had been without power since Tuesday. As a diabetic, she has medication that needs to be refrigerated. She said she started with ice in the wash, but that did not last long.
“I have slept from house to house and in hotels that move my medicines,” Myrick said. ‘I have family living in Mercer County who let me stay at their house tonight, but I’m full. I am absolutely outspoken and stressed. ”
Christian Colabelli, who said he lost several hundred dollars on food when the power went out, said the outages make it difficult to work from home.
“I actually went to my uncle in Freehold to work because he still had power on Tuesday,” Colabelli said. “However, he received a message shortly after I left at 7.30pm to say that he would lose power again from JCP & L. There was no explanation. He has not yet received power. ”
“Sandy should have been a blatant reminder to find a path to efficient power repair,” he added.
Kimberly Sautner of Keansburg is no stranger to storms that wreaked havoc and ravaged her home.
Tuesday’s storm knocked power out of her home again and her husband immediately reported the problem to JCP & L, she said. But conversation after conversation has lost Sautner.
Kim Sautner for her home in Keansburg. She has been without power, and with no idea how long it will take to recover, since Tuesday’s storm. She is dependent on a generator.
She spoke to several supervisors to try to learn when power would return, but no one had answers.
“She basically said ‘I know nothing,'” Sautner said of the supervisor she spoke to Friday. “She is meant to be the supervisor’s supervisor.”
The family relied on a portable generator every day at a cost of $ 50 to $ 60 in gas, Sautner said.
Why does it hold in place?
The game for power restoration is a tough one in New Jersey because of overhead power lines and more than 912 million trees.
Critics have said JCP & L is a disadvantage because it is Ohio based, but the company says this is not a problem.
JCP & L President Jim Fakult said at a news conference Friday afternoon that the company had more than 8,000 utilities staff from JCP & L, other First Energy companies, and partner programs working around the clock to restore power to approximately 221,000 customers of JCP & L.
He said service has been restored to about 566,000 JCP&L customers – more than 72% of the 788,000 customers affected by the storm.
Company spokeswoman Cole said JCP & L improved communication to Sandy, both with customers and elected officials.
He said customers can get information about outages on their website, on social media and via text messages that customers can sign up for.
“It may not be the information they want, because restoration can take a few days,” he said.
Regarding the blanket message that customers will get their power back by Tuesday night again, Cole said as the restoration continues, JCP & L is able to provide customers with more specific information.
“We said (Thursday) that 85% of the 1.1 million customers would be restored by 11:30 Friday night,” Cole said. “The remaining 15% will be no later than Tuesday at 11:30 p.m.”
He also said if customers see crews outside waiting in wagons but apparently do not work, they should know that cutting trees or refunding wires “is not the end of the process.”
‘The people who are sitting and waiting for their orders are waiting for safe relocation. If we sent them somewhere else, they would have to come back, ”Cole said.
BPU spokesman Peter Petetzman said some of the strikes, particularly in areas served by JCP & L, “are extremely difficult to address given the location of these customers. Much of JCP & L’s territory is heavy forest and in the countryside. In particular, many downed trees that fall on power lines and hit poles present a significant obstacle to restoring power. “
The BPU said it will not hold any complaints about the reactions of the state utilities until the beginning of next week.
Critics say there is not much incentive for an outsider to be better prepared for the aftermath of a storm.
In 2012, then-Gov. Chris Christie proposed stricter fines if utilities failed their customers in storms like Irene. He wanted to increase the fine for failing to respond adequately to failures ranging from $ 100 per day to $ 25,000 per day.
That never happened.
Asked whether providers should assess daily fines if the service is not repaired, Murphy said he was unsure, noting that there is a flash flood warning through Friday night that could hamper some repairs.
“We keep pushing our utilities hard,” Murphy said, and he agreed that JCP & L “unpacks” when it comes to powerless customers.
‘Come on, people. We need to get people back on track and get their power back, ”said the mayor.
The BPU said it is putting new protocols in place after Sandy and the 2018 winter storms.
“JCP & L, for example, was committed to improving its post-storm damage assessment, the efficiency of its storm management, vegetation management and customer service and communications, among other recommendations,” Peretzman said. “The board is also continuously monitoring the storm response of all utilities to determine where the protocols need to be improved.”
Earlier this week, State Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick, R-Union, called for a special legislative session to address the issue.
“There has been a lot of discussion about investing in our power grid infrastructure,” said Bramnick, a potential Republican candidate for governor next year. “It’s time to move on.”
Murphy said Friday would be “a post-mortem” on the performance of the power companies.
NJ Advance Media staff writers Brent Johnson en Ted Sherman contributed to this report.
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Rodrigo Torrejon can be reached at [email protected].
Karin Price Mueller can be reached at [email protected].
