Downed Phone Line Disrupts Rush-Hour Traffic

Newstead residents who take delight in their sylvan surroundings had an unpleasant homecoming Thursday, due to a redirection of the South Orange Avenue traffic flow that was clogging up Glenview Road, Speir Drive and adjoining streets around 6 p.m.

The trouble began with the wind blowing down a tree in the yard of a home at South Orange Ave. & Speir Drive, which brought down a phone line—causing it to hang low over South Orange Avenue—and took out the house's power, according to a PSE&G employee. The traffic light at South Orange Ave. & Glenview Road—where the road through the South Mountain Reservation effectively begins—was also taken out, but no other homes were affected.

South Orange police blocked off the stretch on South Orange Avenue between Speir Drive and Glenview Road, obliging drivers in both directions to turn onto the typically quiet Newstead streets, which were filled with honking horns.

Glenview Road resident James Vick confirmed that his house still had power and said police started re-directing traffic around 3 p.m. As of 6 p.m., the PSE&G crew hadn't yet arrived to pull the phone line off the road.

According to a PSE&G spokeswoman, about 10,000 customers were without power Thursday afternoon, but there wasn't a concentrated outage in any one area.

The National Weather service extended its high wind alert into Friday, with wind gusts continuing into the early morning.

At about 6:15 p.m., a PSE&G crew was attempting to restore power to a home on Tillou Road between Wyoming Avenue and Mayhew Drive, but no power line was down there.

The wind had traffic implications elsewhere in the state. The Star-Ledger is reporting a death related to Thursday's high winds in Mountainside. A driver was killed on Route 22 when a tree fell on a car, according to the report.

Read the full report: Wind-toppled tree top kills driver on Route 22