NJ Warns Power May Be Out Until Late in Weekend; 170K Dark
Nearly 200,000 customers in New Jersey remained without power Tuesday afternoon -- and authorities warned restoration efforts could last into the weekend.
Wild weather tore through the entire tri-state Monday into Tuesday, throttling the region for more than 12 hours as hundreds of thousands of people grappled with flooding conditions, nightmare commutes and lack of electricity -- but the power outages were most prominent in the Garden State. At the peak of the storms, the total number of statewide outages soared above 300,000, with most of the affect customers in Monmouth, Ocean and Burlington counties.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities said critical customers like hospitals and water systems would receive restoration priority. Crews from neighboring states and from as far away as Canada are assisting in the recovery, spokesman Peter Peretzman said.
"The best estimate at this point is restoration will continue through the week -- and late into the weekend in the hardest hit areas," Peretzman said. "The utilities are responding to emergency and make safe situations, and conducting system wide damage assessments which are critical to dispatching crews in the most effective manner to bring back the largest groups of customers as quickly as possible."
The storms have been blamed for at least one death -- a 17-year-old Neptune, New Jersey, boy who lost his life in a house fire. The power had been out at the home at the time, authorities said; a cause of the blaze is under investigation.
Photo Credit: News 4
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