UPDATE from Township: Township Manager Marc Dashield spoke with representatives from PSE&G about remaining power outages in Montclair: according to PSE&G the current number of households without power is 1,200. Power should be restored to these households by midnight Friday.
This is “Georgia Power!” writes Michael Reitman, who met Andy Holt (left) and Brian Bragg — who came all the way from Georgia lend a hand with restoring electrical service in Montclair. Holt and Bragg said they were working in Upper Montclair this morning and predicted that power would be restored by this evening.
Photo: Michael Reitman
We are thankful to the folks from Georgia Power who are helping…and I hope their prediction of powerr returning tonight is accurate…but at the risk of being a Debbie Downer (and catching PSEG in an oops), I got off the telephone with a PSEG rep an hour ago who said he has been told to advise people in my area of Upper Montclair that power will be restored (not by midnight Friday as per article above) by Saturday Midnight. Ugh! Silly but 24 hours longer is a big deal to me and my family!
I just got power back at about 4:45PM … I came home from work to find no power, and while I was preparing for yet another cold night, all of a sudden everything came back on. I’m on Wildwood between Park and Grove.
…and then it went out for an hour… back on now, hoping it stays this way.
We got our power back on too, thanks to Georgia Power. What I learned from all this is the number of homes without electricity is very misleading. PSEG has no way of knowing if you have power or not. A lot of people could not get through to PSEG during the first 48 hours of the blackout and then assumeed they knew they were w/o power because their entire block was dark. Not the case! PSEG said they had no record of our outage in Upper Montclair, even though I did report our outage. And the entire north side of our block was out. Just got power back this afternoon. Councilman Murnick was very responsive to our plight. But where has the Mayor been through all this? What a debacle! This past week would surely be his Mayor Lindsay moment if not for the fact that Jerry is not (from what I’ve heard) running for re-election. On a side note: I would not be surprised if the number of actual homes still w/o power is much higher than PSEG claims.
Well power still out for several homes Highland. And Verizon won’t come to repair their downed lines until power restored (understandable)…so now I am left wondering where is the best place in Baristaville to watch the football on Sunday……
Each contract line crew has a PSE&G supervisor with them. He or she has a map that shows the “circuit” starting from the substation, all the way to its end. Go out, look around, and find the person with the PSE&G car or small truck. They have the answer for your neighborhood.
“Our” crew in West Caldwell was a four truck convoy from Indiana and a PSEG van. I saw them down on the county road on Monday, and they accurately forecast how many houses they could turn on. They worked up to the next corner and turned on the power (for about 25 houses) around 11pm Monday.
Same crew showed up around 8.30am Tuesday, and said it would take about two hours to restore our block’s power. About 10.15am, the power went on. They had to clear branches out of wires, re-hook wires to houses, etc. By about noon, they had 30 more houses lighted.
If that PSEG supervisor isn’t scheduled to work your circuit, that person can tell you where the crew is that will get the job done. Walk or drive around, find them, thank them for being there, and you’ll get an accurate estimate of where your block is on their list.
The supervisor calls PSEG with the information as houses are turned on, somebody at PSEG loads that into their system, and eventually a clerk reads it when you call. It’s not always in real time. They had told us “by Wednesday 8pm” and beat that by almost 36 hours.
For areas with a lot of downed trees, blocked roads, etc, the wire guys have to wait for town, county, and contractor tree crews to open up the roads so they can get to the wires. They leapfrog those areas and go back when the area is open.
In places like Essex County, most circuits have connections at both ends. But some don’t. So, if a blocked street is key to the circuit (near the substation) nobody farther down the line gets power. The big old trees are lovely, but they’re deadly to wires when their branches come down.
Hi Andy & Brian,
Welcome to God’s country! If you could head down to GR and fix the light at Ridgewood & Bay. Peeps are detoured down Forest Ave and they think it’s the GSP!
Much obliged.