Residents Confront Committee with Power Woes

The snow has melted but the aftereffects of the Halloween storm were felt in the Morris Township municipal meeting room Wednesday night.

Residents claim the same sections of the township were last to receive power after the snowstorm as after Hurricane Irene.

Clare Walter of Mountainside Drive asked the mayor and council to justify why her road as well as Skyline and Hillside drives were out of power longer than other sections of the township both times.

Mayor Scott Rosenbush said the governing body learned from JCP&L that they set priorities based on the number of people without power on a given circuit. The power company doesn’t look at roads or neighborhoods. He said the same neighborhoods were not actually last to receive power, but may have been near the end.

Rosenbush told residents the committee met with the Board of Public Utilities during a private League of Municipalities-sponsored session at Headquarters Plaza as well as with JCP&L at a public meeting. He said his comments to the BPU included criticism of the deferred maintenance, lack of linemen and poor infrastructure.

The mayor said JCP&L crews were trimming trees in some neighborhoods even before Irene, but didn’t get enough done.

Another problem in the township is that a substation flooded during Irene is not back to full service, Rosenbush said.

One success the township achieved was getting the power company to report to them in more detail with estimates of when certain roads would regain power.

Now that power is back, both the township and residents are dealing with expenses. The township paid out more than $144,000 for emergency road repairs and residents lost thousands of dollars in frozen food.

Township Administrator Timothy Quinn suggested residents with serious expenses contact the claims manager on the JCP&L Website. Rosenbush said in his conversations with the power company, he did hear some talk about compensation to residents.