Power Outages Prompt Toms River To Call For Probe Of JCP&L

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A pair of recent lengthy power outages that affected the senior communities in Toms River have township officials set to call for an investigation of Jersey Central Power & Light.

Mayor Maurice "Mo" Hill asked the Township Council to pass a resolution at the council's next meeting asking the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to conduct a probe of the company.

The outages — one on Saturday due to a transformer failure along Route 37 and one Monday after a fire at a substation on Silverton Road — left thousands of residents without power for several hours.

Monday's outage affected more than 9,900 customers in Toms River and Lakewood, JCP&L said, including Holiday City at Silverton and part of Leisure Village East in Lakewood.

"This is unacceptable," Hill said. "We have a lot of residents who are on oxygen or medical devices that require electricity," and back-up batteries only last so long, he said.

On Monday, residents also had to contend with temperatures above 90 degrees, leaving them without air conditioning as well as power for medical devices. The substation fire happened late Sunday night, and some residents were without electricity until at least 3 p.m. Monday.

"I find this hard to believe these are isolated incidents or just bad luck," Hill said, asking the council to pass a resolution at its Sept. 13 meeting to call on the BPU to investigate. "I think there's more than meets the eye, it's not just bad luck in hot weather. I think they need to upgrade their infrastructure."

Council members supported Hill's call to ask the Board of Public Utilities to investigate the outages.

Councilman Daniel Rodrick said he asked about the potential for fining JCP&L for the hours that service was out but was told by the township's legal staff that the town could not issue fines to the utility company.

The Board of Public Utilities oversees utilities in the state.