Utility responds to call for changes following Sandy

Mayors say initiatives are a ‘step in the right direction’

BY KENNY WALTER
Staff Writer

 The parking lot at Monmouth Park in Oceanport provided a staging area for utility trucks as well as a shelter for several thousand out-of-area workers involved in restoring power in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy.  BILL DENVER/EQUIPHOTO The parking lot at Monmouth Park in Oceanport provided a staging area for utility trucks as well as a shelter for several thousand out-of-area workers involved in restoring power in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. BILL DENVER/EQUIPHOTO Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L) has unveiled a list of new initiatives to improve response to future major storm events. Included on the list are designating liaisons to local communities and training local emergency responders.

Ron Morano, spokesman for JCP&L, said in a Jan. 8 interview that the utility is aiming to improve service and communication with local municipalities and the public in response to criticism of its handling of the Oct. 29 superstorm and a subsequent Nov. 4 nor’easter.

“The area managers or local liaisons are going to be in the field as opposed to the regional offices where they are now,” Morano said, adding that municipal liaisons will be assigned to company field offices to maintain contact with local officials.

JCP&L’s new practices and technology improvements were unveiled at closed meetings on Jan. 3 in Eatontown and Morristown with local officials, members of the League of Municipalities, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and the New Jersey State Police.

Another new initiative will be training local first responders how to identify electrical and other types of wiring.

“We are preparing a training program for them that they can use within their local municipal departments of safety,” Morano said. “It is basically an electrical safety training program.

“They are going to be given a kit that pretty much details electrical safety components.”

Morano said the training would not address downed power lines, but instead would outline how to identify the difference between cable, phone and electrical lines, which would expedite the utility’s response.

JCP&L will also provide municipalities with maps showing electrical circuit routes in their communities.

In response to complaints that daily updates from JCP&L regional managers did not address local conditions, the utility will institute more locally focused regional conference calls during large storm events that lead to widespread power outages.

“There is still going to be an overall call with company officials; however, what we are going to do is have general managers in Central New Jersey and northern New Jersey,” Morano said. “There will be targeted calls by each of those general managers for counties within those regions.

“We do take their feedback, we do work to improve,” he said.

According to Morano, Monmouth County will be included in the central region along with Ocean County and portions of Burlington County.

Also among the initiatives is a new smartphone application that will allow customers to report outages and an enhanced social media presence.

“We’re exploring new technologies and implementing technologies that help us provide additional information,” Morano said.

The utility is also in the process of forming advisory boards that will be designed to educate government officials on emergency response plans.

Morano explained the advisory boards would help educate the public.

“The community advisory boards are designed so we can go to a community organization and say, here is how our process works,” he said.

Since the storm, governing bodies of many local towns have approved a resolution calling for improvements the utility should make, with communication on a more local level at the top of the list.

The resolution resulted from a Nov. 19 summit attended by representatives of some 26 county towns.

Changes called for asked JCP&L to: prioritize critical areas, such as hospitals and areas with recurring outages; relocate substations out of flood zones; provide information on local power grids, including locations and transmission lines; and adopt a proactive tree-trimming approach.

Committeeman Anthony Fiore, who was Middletown mayor during Sandy, praised the initiatives as a good first step during an interview on Jan. 14.

“Clearly it’s a good start. JCP&L has taken the mayors’ recommendations on a number of communications aspects, including additional outage circuit maps and regional calls and regional representatives to be more localized.”

Fiore credited JCP&L for heeding the concerns of local officials.

“A few of their enhancements … were actually verbatim from what we came up with. We will continue to push for these reforms on behalf of our residents and ratepayers.

However, Fiore said the utility still has not addressed capital and infrastructure, which he said are just as critical as the communication aspects.

“I want to know what the capital plan is for my municipality in terms of upgrades to infrastructure,” Fiore said. “I’d like to see what their capital investment plan is to make sure that some of these issues don’t happen again in the future. Municipalities, some of the larger ratepayers, should have that information. “I would like to see what their plans are for tree clearing and other types of maintenance options within my municipality. That had a lot to do with the issues we saw from the high winds.”

One of the harshest critics of the power company following the storm was Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider, who criticized JCP&L for being unresponsive.

Schneider said in a Jan. 8 interview the new measures do not go far enough.

“It is a step in the right direction but it’s not enough,” he said. “I met with a guy a few weeks ago and I want a copy of their emergency-management plan as it applies to Long Branch.

“I want the guy who is in charge of implementation of the next emergency to come to my emergency management meeting,” he added. “If they don’t do that then … they won’t be ready to go.

Morano said some of the criticism leveled at the utility is unwarranted and the company plans to unveil a 2013 capital plan in the coming months.

“We invest in our system every year,” he said. “We upgrade circuits, we replace equipment and we replace poles and put new wires up. We do these things every year.”

According to a fact sheet provided by JCP&L, 1.3 million customers in the state were without power following the storm; 13,800 line workers, hazard responders, forestry workers, call-center representatives, management and support personnel were involved in the storm response; 65,000 trees were cut and cleared; and across the state there were 34,000 hazardous locations, comprised mostly of downed power lines.