By Birgitta Wolfe, managing editor
SPRINGFIELD — Left alone in the dark to fend for themselves in the storm is how the mayors of some 25 towns felt after Hurricane Irene and that’s generally what they told some 20 Jersey Central Power & Light officials Friday.
”There was a feeling of abandonment in the aftermath,” said Springfield Township Mayor Denis McDaniel, who was one of the mayors at the session in Eatontown sponsored by the League of Municipalities.
Mayor McDaniel said he spoke with JCP&L President Don Lynch at the session and told him the utility has to give priory to rural communities in restoring power because they do not have public water and well pumps cannot operate without electricity.
”He told me he would take it into consideration,” the mayor said.
One positive result, he said, was that he now has a direct line to an area coordinator who can be reached in times of emergency and with whom he will work on an on-going basis for problems and prevention items.
During and after the storm the mayor was unable to reach JCP&L and had to contact state Sen. Dawn Marie Addiego’s (R-8th) office to act as a go-between, and still didn’t get all the answers he needed.
”All (the mayors at the Eatontown meeting) agreed there were significant communications problems,” Mayor McDaniel said.
For its part, JCP&L countered it was dealing with the first hurricane in 100 years and was inundated with 400,000 calls during the period, the mayor said.
JCP&L officials said more than two-thirds of its 1.1 million customers lost power. Restoration efforts were hampered by the widespread nature of the damage, inaccessible roads, flood substations and for than 20,000 downed wires, they said.
In the meantime, the state Board of Public Utilities held a public hearing Tuesday in Morristown to try to find a solution.
Mayor McDaniel said he expects the BPU to take some general action applicable for all utilities, and also, specifically for JCP&L because it has had more problems than the others.
He also hoped JCP&L would be persuaded to pay more attention to the maintenance of powerlines, the vegetation around them.
As for the prospect of improvements stemming from the recent sessions, “We’ll see,” the mayor said,
