Brian Lewis of the Metuchen Department of Public Works goes out on a limb to clear tree branches left behind by Hurricane Sandy on Plainfield Avenue on Nov. 3. SCOTT FRIEDMAN A lthough the effects of Hurricane Sandy in various sections of New Jersey were about as diverse as the state’s population itself, close to 3 million residents shared at least one question in the wake of the superstorm — “When will we get power back?” With 2.9 million power outages throughout the state resulting from the Oct. 29 hurricane, households and businesses all over New Jersey were left in the dark — and cold — wondering when it would all be over.
Complicating matters, power losses at gas stations thwarted efforts to leave town for brighter horizons, and even had residents with homes powered by generators struggling to obtain the precious fuel they needed to keep them going.
Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) serves 1.1 million customers in New Jersey. According to spokesman Ron Morano, the company experienced 1.2 million power outages in Sandy’s aftermath, meaning some residents lost power twice.
“Our entire service territory was hammered by the storm,” he said. “This is the worst damage we’ve ever seen in the history of the company.”
To put it in perspective, Morano said, the havoc wrought by Hurricane Sandy is bigger than that of Tropical Storm Irene and the major snowstorm of October 2011 combined.
Deann Muzikar, spokeswoman for Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G), echoed Morano’s statement.
“It’s the biggest storm in PSE&G’s history,” she said.
If it sounds as if the power companies were just as blown away by Sandy as the average resident, it wasn’t for lack of preparation, according to the utilities’ officials.
“We basically were tracking Hurricane Sandy and monitoring the storm,” Muzikar said, adding that preparations also included ensuring that enough equipment and workers were available to respond to the storm’s wrath.
Workers — totaling 3,000 — that are part of a mutual aid partnership with the company joined forces with PSE&G’s 1,000 line workers to help restore power to 1.7 million customers left without.
“We’ve restored about 78 percent, and we still have 375,000 out right now,” she said on Nov. 5, one week after the storm.
In addition to its larger-than-usual crew of line workers, the company has 600 tree contractors out and about, removing trees that stand in the way of restoring power.
JCP&L also mobilized its resources in anticipation of the storm, with 1,600 line workers and 1,200 foresters lying in wait beforehand, Morano said.
“Some of them came from our sister utilities in Ohio and Maryland and places like that,” he said, adding that others came from as far as California, Oregon, Washington and even Canada.
As of Nov. 5, JCP&L had more than 3,800 line workers and more than 1,500 forestry workers helping to meet its goal of restoring power to the remainder of its customers.
“More than 8,000 employees are working on this storm,” Morano said. “And we’re taking new crews every day as they become available.”
The far-reaching call for help had gotten more than 800,000 customers powered up again, but more than 370,000 customers remained powerless early this week.
So, what gives? Many have found themselves asking this question, perhaps vacillating between feeling grateful for the enhanced efforts by the power companies and losing patience as yet another candle burns down to nothing in the dark, cold place that no longer feels like home.
Morano shed some much-needed light on the situation.
Electricity is sent at high-voltage levels from transmission systems to substations, and then through circuits, which are pathways that deliver the electricity to homes and businesses, he explained.
“You’re not just talking about restoring patrons from a power outage — you’re talking about rebuilding the system,” he said.
For example, of 1,200 circuits situated throughout JCP&L’s service area, 1,100 were damaged and in need of repair.
“If we didn’t repair the backbone, we can’t get power to residents,” Morano said.
Overall, 3,900 spans of wire within the company’s jurisdiction were in need of repair or replacement, along with 950 poles and 400 transformers, he said.
But it goes beyond all that, according to Morano.
“We’ve had to remove and cut more than 30,000 trees,” he said. “We sometimes have had to remove two trees to get to the wire we need to fix.”
Although cutting back branches from wires is part of power companies’ regular duties, cutting trees at this volume is slowing down the operation.
As the two companies struggled to deal with snafus on their end, those awaiting electricity watched and waited for power trucks to arrive on their street. It’s a situation that has the potential to create some feelings of jealousy when one happens by an area where power has been restored.
“There’s no preference by community,” Morano explained.
Instead, areas to be addressed are prioritized by looking at several factors, he said. The top priorities are 911 emergencies, according to Morano. Next come public-safety facilities, which include hospitals, police and fire departments, and water- and sewagetreatment plants. The third priority is repairs affecting the largest groups of customers, which again relates to the transmission systems, substations and circuits, he said.
“Make no mistake about it, in a situation like this, we have thousands of people working on all the areas,” he said. “We’re working around the clock. We’re working as quickly and as safely as we can to restore service.”
According to Muzikar, some parts of the state have proved more problematic than others, with the northern areas inundated with downed trees and the shore devastated by flooding.
“Fortunately, now the floodwaters are receding, and we’ll be able to get in there and do some of that restoration work,” she said.
Morano said most of JCP&L’s remaining customers without power were slated to be restored by Wednesday. For those towns that were hit harder by the storm, it could be another week before they receive power.
As with any difficult situation, lessons can be gleaned from the anguish caused by Sandy.
“We implemented a lot of things learned during Irene, like [the use of] Twitter,” Muzikar said, adding that once the worst of this is behind them, staff at PSE&G will meet to figure out what they’ve learned in terms of best practices for going forward.
“We take lessons learned from every storm,” Morano said.