UPPER FREEHOLD: Hundreds of homes still without power

By Jane Meggitt, Special Writer
   UPPER FREEHOLD — An estimated 600 township residences were still without power Monday evening, but the mayor says she’s been told by the utility company that electricity and heat should be restored to all by Friday.
   Mayor LoriSue Horsnall Mount shared that information at a special Township Committee meeting held Monday to discuss Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. The meeting room at the municipal building was full with many attendees among those who were still without power a full week after the Oct. 29 storm.
   Mrs. Mount said JCP&L told her Monday evening that the majority of those without power should have it back between Wednesday and Friday. Township officials promised to have representatives from JCP&L at a future meeting so they and residents could get answers from the company about its response to Sandy.
   Mrs. Mount praised the township’s Department of Public Works, saying the crews were able to get all downed trees not involved with electrical wires off the township’s roads within 24 hours after Hurricane Sandy struck Monday, Oct. 29.
   The mayor also thanked the township’s first responders, both career and volunteer, for the work they have done over the past week.
   Mike Conroy, the township’s emergency management coordinator, said JCP&L and out-of-state crews still were working on the transformer on Rues Road and the substation on Route 526 on Monday. While the lights are back on in many developments, residents of Forge Mill Estates and Galloping Brook off Route 526, the Woods at Cream Ridge on Sharon Station Road and others still had no power.
   Mr. Conroy said residents could contact him via phone at 609-548-7191 or by email at [email protected]. He also urged residents to sign up for the Everbridge notification system, a reverse 911 system that provides updates in emergency situations.
   Gary Weiner, the president of the Allentown-Upper Freehold First Aid Squad, said that while the first aid building at 70 Route 526 was equipped as a shelter, no local residents actually had stayed there. He said a couple from Sweden, en route to the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, got lost off the New Jersey Turnpike and ended up at the shelter Oct. 29 when the storm was raging. They were able to leave the next day, he said.
   ”A lot of (local) people may be without power, but stayed in their homes,” Mr. Weiner said.
   The shelter will be open to evacuees from the hard-hit eastern part of the county if necessary, according to Mr. Weiner. Ironically, the First Aid Squad building was operating with generators Monday, seven days after the storm, because the utility company had not yet restored power to the building.
   Donations for Monmouth County storm victims may be brought to the First Aid Squad building between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
   The Stone Bridge Middle School was also put to use for its restrooms, showers and Internet service every day last week from noon to 9 p.m. Now that classes have resumed, residents still without power can use the school’s showers and library after students leave, from 4 to 9 p.m., until power is restored to all township homes.
   Upper Freehold Regional School District Superintendent Dick Fitzpatrick said school attendance Monday — the first day back after the storm — was quite good with an absentee rate of only 7.7 percent. He noted many students at Allentown High School live in Millstone where half the homes were without power Monday.
   In the K-8 Millstone district, the primary, elementary and middle schools remained closed Tuesday for the seventh day in a row due to the power outages. Bus transportation was provided Monday for Millstone students in grades nine through 12 who attend AHS once the Upper Freehold Regional schools reopened.
   UFRSD schools are scheduled to remain open the entire week — a last-minute change in the school calendar that originally had called for a three-day week because of the now-cancelled New Jersey Education Association Convention in Atlantic City. After the teachers union cancelled the event because of the storm damage, the district opted to make up two missed school days Nov. 8 and Nov. 9.