Storm Hits Montclair: Trees Down, Roads Closed (See The List)

MONTCLAIR, NJ — Montclair town workers are on the job and trying to clear snow from the town’s streets after a Wednesday storm wreaked havoc on the area. A state of emergency is still in effect as of Thursday at 4 p.m., Montclair OEM officials said.

Montclair officials issued the following advisory at 6:49 a.m. on Thursday:

“Montclair Community Services crews work around the clock to clear snow from our streets. Residents and business owners are reminded not to undo all this hard work by depositing snow from your property or sidewalks into the street. Not only does this hinder township efforts to keep roadways cleared, it is illegal. Snow blowing and shoveling snow from walkways, driveways and sidewalks into the streets, plowing driveways into the streets, cleaning snow off of vehicles into the street is prohibited per township ordinance 297-33. Please make sure your contractors are aware of the law when they clear snow from your property."

Montclair officials added:

“Please remember to clear sidewalks of ice and snow in front of your property. Ordinance 297-32 requires property owners to clear the full paved width of the sidewalk or a minimum of 48 inches wide in order to ensure the safety of pedestrians using the sidewalks. In addition, property owners whose sidewalk leads to a crosswalk must remove snow and ice to provide a clear path of access to the crosswalk (ordinance 297-31).”

Township Code Enforcement officials will be writing summons to those who disregard the ordinances, Montclair officials warned.

The Montclair Health Department has set up a warming station in Municipal Council Chambers, 205 Claremont Avenue. “Come in for a cup of tea, charge your device,” officials said Thursday morning. “We'll be open until 4:30 p.m.”

Edgemont Park House was closed Thursday due to the aftermath of the storm, Montclair officials said.

A reporter from ABC7 New York posted that a fallen tree blocked the roadway at S. Park and The Crescent.

The Montclair OEM provided a list of fully and partially closed township roads, which can be seen in the below charts:

Montclair wasn’t the only Essex County town hit hard by the storm. Flights were canceled in Newark, roads became impassable in Verona and Cedar Grove, car crashes were reported in Millburn, and downed power lines were seen in Maplewood and Livingston. Check out the below article for more examples of storm damage and issues in Essex County.

• See related article: Essex County Sees Crashes, Outages, Bad Roads

PSE&G: 80,000 LOSE POWER

If you lost power during the storm, you weren’t the only one. PSE&G said that about 80,000 of its 2.2 million customers were without power as a result of yesterday’s storm.

According to PSE&G:

Working overnight and this morning, the utility has restored about 190,000 customers since the storm began.

• Heavy, wet snow brought down large trees, branches and wires across PSE&G’s service territory. Electric service crews worked through the night and will continue to work in difficult conditions to restore outages as safely and as quickly as possible.
• The restoration process will likely take several days given the damage from falling trees that will need to be cleared. The utility is mobilizing additional employees to help with damage assessment so that it can better determine restoration times. We ask our customers to be patient as we deal with these difficult conditions and work to safely restore power.
• PSE&G’s 16 walk-in customer service centers are expected to open at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
• Downed wires should always be considered “live.” Do not approach or drive over a downed line and do not touch anything that it might be in contact with.
• To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, do not run any gasoline powered engine, including generators and snow blowers, in a garage or any other enclosed space. Clear snow from dryer and hot water heater vents.
• PSE&G encourages customers to report downed wires and power outages by logging in to My Account on www.pseg.com, texting the word “OUT” to 4PSEG, or calling PSE&G’s Customer Service line at 1-800-436-PSEG.
• The utility offers customers a number of ways to stay in touch and informed before, during and after a storm. These tools can be found at PSE&G’s mobile-friendly website www.pseg.com in the “Storm Center.” Updated every 15 minutes, PSE&G’s mobile-friendly “Outage Map” displays the location and status of power outages.

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File Photo: Eric Kiefer