'Multi-Day' Restoration For Those Sans Power In Hopatcong, Sparta

The flashbacks to Superstorm Sandy were unavoidable as officials told those rendered powerless by Tropical Storm Isaias that restoration would be a matter of days, not hours.

And that is if you could get an update at all.

"We currently expect that this will be a multi-day restoration effort," said Cliff Cole, a Jersey Central Power & Light spokesman. The utility supplies electricity to a large part of northern and central New Jersey. "As the weather calms down, crews will continue to assess damage in order to provide estimated restoration times."

The company's outage map was inconsistent and incorrect throughout the storm. While the majority of the customers did not receive restoration estimates, many that did saw those times pass without update. Some, even received phone calls, texts and emails telling them their power had been restored when it had not.

One customer attempted to inform the utility of the misfire and received error messages through their automated. When they reached a customer service representative they were told there were 500 homes without power in their area. The map showed 9,000.

The storm Tuesday brought strong winds and heavy rains buffeting the area that closed roads, felled trees, flooded roads and robbed over 123,000 homes of power in Morris County.

Cole added that additional line workers, damage assessors, forestry contractors, and support personnel were on the way to help from non-affected areas.

This post contains reporting by Carl Stoffers.

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