A far flung power disruption broke down electricity to much of Monmouth and parts of Ocean and Middlesex counties tonight.
Power officials have announced that a fire at a transformer in Neptune resulted in the outage, which left more than 10,000 customers without any electricity and disabled traffic lights during high traffic hour on several major roads.
Jersey Central Power & Light media relations officer Ron Morano was heard telling the folks that fire was the primary suspect in some high-voltage transformers to trip off-line. But as to why the fire started in the first place, nobody has the answers yet. Sabotage, faulty equipment, wear and tear could be potential causes but only an investigation would reveal that.
Were you affected by it? Tell us about it below.
I was working in Howell when the blackout occured. The company finally shut down my shift and I was sent home with only 1 hours pay. It took me 1 hour to get home passing many blocked roads. I was scared driving with no lights. It normally takes me only 20 minutes to get home.
Lights went out in Brielle and I called JCP & L to tell them we lost power. Didn’t realize it was as widespread…. Arecordiong comes on and it says that “severe weather has caused outages in the area”. Rigggghhhht. Not a storm anywhere last night…..
Lights came back on around 7:40, then went off again at 7:43, then back on at 7:45, then off again 7:50, and then off again at 8:20 on again 2 minutes later, then finally off again for two minutes aorund 8:50. I gave up resetting the clocks until this morning.
JCP & L “helpfully” offered to give me a wake up call this morning. I told them OK and asked for one at 7:20 AM…. The phone rings at 7:06 and says that it is for the wakeup call I requested. Gee, thanks, what’s another 14 minutes of sleep?
Maybe it is time to look into a power generator at my house. This third world power grid we have in NJ is getting annoying…..