PSE&G: Nearly 150,000 in Essex Still Without Power
Electric Company official says Hurricane Sandy 'similar but a much more serious storm than Irene.'
Nearly 150,000 PSE&G customers in Essex County are still without power Wednesday morning after what officials called a "painstaking" restoration process.
Power has been restored to large parts of Newark, including Newark International Liberty Airport, Elizabeth and parts of Jersey City. Newark likely experienced the brunt of outages, with 95 percent of the city dark Tuesday. That number has dropped to 35 percent, with an assessment of substations continuing Wednesday.
"We have an enormous amount of work ahead of us," said Ralph Izzo, chairman and chief executive officer of PSE&G.
Hurricane Sandy, said another PSE&G official, was "similar but a much more serious storm than Irene."
There were more than 255,000 Essex County PSE&G customers without power on Tuesday. At the peak of outages, 1.5 million PSE&G customers were in the dark.
Currently, 900,000 in New Jersey are without electricity. Restoring power to 10 hospitals and water utilities are top priorities for PSE&G, officials said.
Officials said 163,000 in Bergen County and 60,000 in Passaic County are still without electricity.
Mary Emanuelli
4:22 pm on Thursday, November 1, 2012
Why is PSE&g not removing the dangerous trees as least? At noon today there were a dozen tree removal trucks siting in the kmart parking lot in west orange doing nothing
Victoria Hanks
4:22 pm on Thursday, November 1, 2012
Outraged that montclair was told 7 to ten days as of yesterday. It is cold and all food has been thrown out. Spending money every day on going out to eat. This is our first year in town-astonished at the lack of response. No activity seen in the city-no work being done on trees,etc. And no school til nov 12!? The trees were never maintained here and now no rush to clean up. Why is bloomfield in such better shape?
Justin d dark
7:02 pm on Friday, November 2, 2012
There are wires hanging from a pole on broughton ave abloomfield since the storm and the neighborhood is without power. Can't be that difficult a fix. Yet everyone around has power including the empty tennis courts in pulaski park... Some priorities.
Nicole Berry
8:58 am on Sunday, November 4, 2012
IM LIVE IN THE SOUTHWARD OF NEWARK AND ITS SUNDAY AND STILL NO WORK DONE TO POWER LINES. THE NEWS AND INTERNET IS REPEATING THE SAME UPDATES. THEY ALL ARE LIARS. ITS BEEN SIX DAYS AND ALL YOU HEAR ABOUT IS GAS AND BUSINESSES. WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE??? I SEEN TRUCKS WORKING ON TRAFFIC LIGHTS. WHAT ABOUT HOMES? THE CHILDREN!! WHO CARES ABOUT THE SCHOOLS!! WHAT ABOUT THE HOMES!? BABIES!! NOT JUST OLD PEOPLE, ALL PEOPLE!!! WHO CARES ABOUT POLITICS!!! YOU CARE MORE ABOUT THE OUTSIDE THAN THE INSIDE. PEOPLE ARE DYING TRYING TO STAY WARM. WAKE UP!! I BET THERE ISNT ONE PERSON IN OFFICE, ANY OFFICE THAT IS UN A POSITION TO GET ANSWERS, WHO DOESNT HAVE THEIR GAS AND ELECTRIC.