Proceed with caution. Power is out right now along Bloomfield Avenue and no one (at 3 p.m.) had yet arrived to direct traffic. From Lackawanna Plaza up to North Mountain Ave., Pompton Ave., traffic lights are out.
PSE&G tells us they have reports of widespread outages in Montclair, Irvington, East Orange and West Orange. They haven't pinpointed the cause yet, and can't give an estimate yet of when power will be restored. We're hearing specifically that downtown Montclair and the South End have power out.
A tipster gives this explanation...
There was a fire at some sort of power plant on the corner of Northfield Avenue and Prospect, I was driving and saw the fire, a couple of small explosions in the distance. Traffic lights are out in West Orange, Bloomfield Ave, Montclair, Claremont, and Walnut, lights still on at Chestnut.
Reports are coming in that parts of Clifton and Glen Ridge may be affected. We'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: Some 30,000 75,000 homes are affected in the following neighborhoods: West Orange, South Orange, East Orange, Orange, Irvington, Caldwell, Verona and Montclair. A fire at a switching station in West Orange is the cause.
UPDATE 6:11 PM: We hear unconfirmed reports from people who have called PSE&G that the utility is conducting a rolling blackout, and that areas that have power now may lose power later. However, NJ.com reports that most power in Essex County should be restored by early evening.
Power should be restored by 7:30 p.m. to most of the 75,000 customers hit by an outage in Essex County this afternoon, according to a spokeswoman for Public Service Electric & Gas Co.A failed breaker caused a fire at a switching station in West Orange today, forcing PSE&G to shut power to thousands during the season's first extended heat wave.
"To preserve the integrity of the other equipment, we had to reduce demand on the station by shutting it down," spokeswoman Bonnie Sheppard said in an e-mail. "This action affected other area stations."
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Kids just called from home. Power is out south of Watchung ave in Montclair.
Called the PSE&G hotline...."Please call back...due to high volume of calls"
No ETA from Township manager either. I called and they are out of power as well.