Lights by Midnight For Most

According to an alert issued by the Morris Township police at approximately 6 p.m. Monday, JCP&L expects to have "most power back on by midnight." This does not include side streets where the power was knocked out by falling trees, the alert said.

Earlier on Monday, Township administrator Timothy Quinn had said that, according to JCP&L, the power outage could be "a multi-day event" for some residents. About half of Morris Township was still without power Monday morning.

"The power is coming back on slowly, one area at a time" he said at that time. "But we have no list of which sections they're doing or what order they'll be done."

Because the power company's Ridgedale substation in Morristown was flooded by the Whippany River, "JCP&L is now working on transferring customers to other substations. There's one in Whippany, one in Convent Station, one in Mendham," Quinn said. 

According to our sister-site, Morristown Patch, JCP&L representatives told Morristown Mayor Dougherty that "they've never experienced anything like this before."

The Ridgedale Avenue substation also flooded in 1999 when remnants of Hurricane Floyd hit the area. As a result, JCP&L built a flood retaining wall around the site, which Dougherty said 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."