Another Day Of Darkness In Freehold [PHOTOS/VIDEO]

Against the sounds of chainsaws and wood chippers, Monday looks to be another day in the dark for JCP+L customers in Freehold Borough & Township.

Crews began their work early on Sunday morning after a violent supercell brought strong 60MPH straight line winds to Freehold late Saturday night.

JCP+L brought in extra crews to help with restoration efforts, which spokesman John Anderson described as a"labor intensive"process with "trees and wires everywhere."  The storm  not only brought down trees and power lines but are also blocking streets, adding an extra step to getting crews in place.

The work appears to have paid off, however. still without power in  Freehold Borough & Freehold Township, according to the utility's outage map. That number is down significantly from the 4600 who were still in the dark on Sunday night.

The utility expects to have most customers restored by 6PM Monday night. Some more difficult restorations will take until Tuesday.

The number is up from this morning as crews may need to turn off power to restore service to others.

Freehold Borough Mayor imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew which was enforced by the Monmouth County Sheriff's Department along with Borough Police.

The Monmouth County Clerk’s Office in Freehold will be closed to the public today. The office is still without electric power.

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The utility has made free ice and water available to its customers at several supermakets including:

• Foodtown, Park Avenue (Route 33) , Freehold;
• ShopRite, South Street (Route 79), Freehold;
• Acme, Route 9, Freehold, and
• Stop & Shop, Raintree Town Center, Freehold Township.

WHAT CAUSED THE STORM?

The National Weather Service in Mt. Holly on its Facebook page describes the storm a supercell and says it was straight line wind, not a tornado, that caused all the damage although the damage is similar in both.

As explained by the National Weather Service:

The black circled (warm colors) area are winds moving away from the radar while the white circled (cool colors) area are winds moving towards the radar. The blue arrow represents the approximate movement of the storm...to the East-Northeast.

When the winds are shown in the this orientation (with warm and cool colors separated) this is considered 'straight-line' winds. The white pixels, within the larger green area, are winds around 50 knots at an elevation of 1200 feet above the ground...very strong close to the surface. In actuality, since the storm was moving to the east-northeast it passed the radar beam at an angle, therefore we were not fully sampling the magnitude of the winds. This means that, more than likely, the winds actually being experienced at the surface were higher than 50 knots/58mph.