JCP&L: 19,000 With Power, 3,100 To Go

It may have taken longer than anticipated, or hoped, but power was finally beginning to come back on throughout Morris Township and Morristown during the night and into Tuesday morning.

Ron Morano, public relations for JCP&L, said Tuesday morning that only 3,100 of the approximately 19,000 Morristown-area residents who had power out are still without service. Anyone whose power went out due to the JCP&L substation on Ridgedale Avenue being flooded should now have power, he said.

"We have developed a solution to bring power back to the network there," said Morano, who noted there was no estimated time when the remaining 3,100 customers would have electricity back.

"We're continuing to work on restoring them and bringing them back to service," he said.

"Most of the central business district's power has been restored," reported Morristown Partnership via Facebook at 8 a.m. Tuesday. "We will post the official word from the Town of Morristown when it is available."

The Morristown business association noted, however, it will take some time for all businesses to re-open as some need Health Department approval. "Many have water damage and some need systems re-set. Thank you for supporting your local businesses once they do re-open."

According to the JCP&L outage map, the number of residents in "Morristown" (location based on 07960 ZIP code, so it include residents in Morris Township and other surrounding areas), 7,952 were still without power as of 8:25 a.m. Tuesday. This was down considerably from the 12,000 or so reported throughout much of Monday. This number may also not completely reflect the total number of customers affected, as it depends on whether outages have been called in to JCP&L or not.

Power outages could still be occurring because of storm damage unrelated to the substation at JCP&L on Ridgedale Avenue, .

The Ridgedale Avenue substation had flooded when remnants of Hurricane Floyd hit the area in 1999. As a result, JCP&L built a flood retaining wall around the site, which Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty said Monday was built "in preparation of the 100-year-flood, plus 50 percent.

"That wall was still breached by the Whippany River [this weekend]," he said. "You can just imagine the intensity of that river and how it rose and how the whole substation flooded out."

Patch will provide updates as they become available.