Toms River Mostly Spared As Storm Wallops Ocean County

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A storm that brought dozens of trees down on homes and vehicles and left more than 50,000 without electric service into Tuesday in Ocean County mostly spared Toms River.

Jersey Central Power & Light reported that just over 4,000 homes and businesses in Toms River were without electricity at the peak of post-storm outages Monday evening. More than 86,000 homes and businesses in Ocean County were without power at the peak.

The Ocean County sheriff's office encouraged residents to stay off the roads as much as possible into the evening and overnight. Firefighters in Toms River were providing support to Brick and Lakewood as they wrestled with fire calls and downed wires, among other calls.

"People of Ocean County: This storm packed a wallop," the sheriff's office said in a post on Facebook. "We were hit hard. There are multiple wires down calls. There are multiple tree down calls. There are power outages throughout the county but especially in the northern and western parts. Do not travel unless you have to. Let the responders do their jobs."

As of about 12:30 a.m., Toms River still had about 3,100 homes and businesses without power out of more than 48,000 in the township. Other towns were not as fortunate: Jackson Township had more than 17,000 of 22,000 without power at the peak, with more than 13,000 still awaiting restoration early Tuesday morning. Brick Township had more than half of the town without service. Manchester had a relatively minor outage of fewer than 1,000 homes.

JCP&L on its Facebook page said the storm caused significant damage due to "straight-line winds and likely downbursts and microbursts." There were confirmed wind speeds of 76 mph in Burlington County, 73 mph in Ocean County, and widespread 60 to 70 mph winds across Monmouth County. It said estimated times for power restoration would be shared as soon as possible.

If you are without power due to the weather, report your outage by calling 888-544-4877 or text OUT to 544487.

Assume any downed wire is energized and dangerous and report it by calling 888-544-4877.

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