Ice, wind gusts knock out power for thousands in NJ

TRENTON — Icing along with high winds, fallen trees and some flooding have left over 22,000 people without power across New Jersey.

"The ice is building up on some of our equipment causing circuits to lock out and some of our customers are without power this morning," PSE&G spokeswoman Karen Johnson told New Jersey 101.5.

The state's three major power suppliers brought in extra staff to respond to the outages, but Johnson said the icing did take her utility by surprise.

"We are assessing the situation and we'll be out to make repairs just as soon as it's safe to do so," Johnson said.

Atlantic City Electric spokesman Frank Tedesco told New Jersey 101.5 in an email that the main cause of the outages their service was the wind.

"We are experiencing gusty winds in these areas and as a result numerous tree limbs have fallen onto electric infrastructure which resulted in outages. We are experiencing heavy precipitation across our service territory in the form of rain, sleet and snow. There is also some tidal flooding on the barrier islands that we serve."

As of 4:500p.m., here's what the utility outage maps showed:

• JCP&L: 4,322 outages, mostly in Morris and Ocean counties
•  PSE&G: 7,430 are without power, mostly in Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Middlesex counties
• Atlantic CIty Electric: 8,693 customers in the dark in Gloucester, Cumberland and Salem counties

All the utilities said their customers should report outages and downed wires immediately to them via their respective websites, apps and phone numbers.

"Customers should never go near a downed power line, even if they think it is no longer carrying electricity," JCP&L spokesman Ron Morano said. "Extra caution should be used in areas where downed lines are tangled in trees or other debris. Motorists are cautioned to treat intersections with inoperable traffic signals as four-way stops."

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com.

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