Heat Wave Breaks With Severe Thunderstorms & Power Outages
Severe thunderstorms pounded sections of New Jersey on Friday, especially southern Ocean County, to end the first heat wave of the summer.
JCP+L's outage map indicates around 1300 customers are still without power on Saturday morning in Union & Alexanddria Townships in Hunterdon County with scatted outages in most of its service areas. Atlantic City Electric still had 1000-plus customers in the dark in Cumberland County while restoring most power in Stafford Township where over 5000 customers lost power during Friday's storms.
PSE+G's outage map showed scattered outages in its New Jersey service area stretching from south Jersey through Middlesex and into Union Hudson and Bergen counties.
There was much lightning associated with Friday's storms. John Warren, spokesman for Gateway National Recreation Area at Sandy Hook, told the Star Ledger that one person was struck by lightning — along with at least 10 buildings — when a storm passed through the area just before 3 p.m.
"It was a very intense storm that settled over the north end of Sandy Hook," he said this evening. "At the entrance, it was in sunshine."
At least 10 vehicles had to be towed from the Ocean Acres section of Stafford Township when especially intense rain fell around 12:30PM according to the Asbury Park Press. Route 72, Forecastle Avenue and Outboard Avenue were especially hard and were closed into the evening.
The sudden storm wreaks havoc in Barnegat, where police responded to 30 calls in two hours including six lightning strikes, six downed trees, two atop unoccupied cars, five blocked streets, five fire alarm activations and two each of smoke odors and downed light poles. Police say there was electrical and water damage and power surges but no fires or injuries.
WMGM TV tweeted a 76 MPH wind gust in Barnegat on Friday afternoon.
Stafford Business Administrator James A. Moran described Friday's storm as a "100 year storm" in the Asbury Park Press. “This town and most of Ocean County has no drainage that can handle this kind of storm.
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