Severe thunderstorms packing winds gusting to 60 mph walloped New Jersey on Friday evening, leaving more than 230,000 homes and businesses without power.
First Energy was reporting more than 185,000 Jersey Central Power & Light customers without electricity as of 11 p.m., and PSE&G was reporting nearly 48,000 on their respective websites. Atlantic City Electric had about 2,400 customers without power.
Morris County was hardest hit, with JCP&L reporting more than 67,000 customers affected. Monmouth County had more than 47,000 customers affected, the power company said.
The Morris County Office of Emergency Management was urging people to only call 911 for true emergencies because of the volume of calls they were receiving.
Roxbury Township police said trees had fallen on homes and vehicles, trapping people inside, and urged residents to be patient for responses to situations that are not immediately life-threatening.
A portion of Route 46 East was closed because of the storm's aftermath.
"Our officers, firefighters, EMS, and DPW crews are actively responding to life-threatening emergencies," Roxbury police said. "If you are calling to report a tree or wires down that is not creating an immediate danger to life or safety please let dispatch know your call is NOT an emergency, and please understand that your call may have to wait while we respond to these critical incidents. If you are experiencing a true emergency, call 911 immediately."
In Hoboken, the storms blew debris all over the NJ Transit tracks, NJ Transit said.
Marlboro Township in Monmouth County had a lengthy list of road closures due to downed trees and wires, including portions of Route 79, Tennent Road, Robertsville Road, Crine Road and Gordons Corner Road.
"Please avoid these areas and seek alternate routes whenever possible. Avoid travel unless it is absolutely necessary," Marlboro police said.
Howell Township had nearly 9,000 customers without power, and firefighters had to battle a house fire that was related to the storm.
The Monmouth County Sheriff's Office was urging people to report power outages to JCP&L and to stay clear of downed power lines.
The impact of the storms was significantly less in the southern part of the state, with the number of customers without power dropping to less than 1,000 after 11:30 p.m.
Send your storm photos with your name and town to Karen Wall at karen.wall@patch.com. Please only send photos you took, and grant us permission to publish them on Patch with updates on the storm.
Customer Outages by county as of 11:30 p.m.
JCP&L
Burlington 2,085 of 15,935 (13%)
Essex 1,274 of 12,721 (10%)
Hunterdon 10,069 of 61,534 (16%)
Mercer 259 of 18,345 (1%)
Middlesex 2,722 of 89,299 (3%)
Monmouth 47,729 of 296,773 (16%)
Morris 67,253 of 208,336 (32%)
Ocean 10,657 of 260,714 (4%)
Passaic 637 of 15,567 (4%)
Somerset 5,106 of 38,744 (13%)
Sussex 17,023 of 58,451 (29%)
Union 15,618 of 28,396 (55%)
Warren 5,879 of 53,263 (11%)
PSE&G
BERGEN County 2,008 of 348,422 (0.58%)
BURLINGTON County 828 of 178,715 (0.46%)
CAMDEN County 35 of 155,450 (0.02%)
ESSEX County 9,194 of 354,874 (2.59%)
GLOUCESTER County 1 of 33,471 (0.00%)
HUDSON County 2,396 of 356,859 (0.67%)
HUNTERDON County 6 of 62 (9.68%)
MERCER County 2,103 of 148,180 (1.42%)
MIDDLESEX County 4,869 of 256,333 (1.90%)
MONMOUTH County 0 of 1,568 (0.00%)
MORRIS County 0 of 59 (0.00%)
PASSAIC County 2,450 of 173,800 (1.41%)
SOMERSET County 2,153 of 112,583 (1.91%)
UNION County 16,753 of 207,270 (8.08%)
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