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And in just 2 short weeks, we have had more snow than I thought we would get for all of December and have no power.
My question, in Warren County when there is heavy snow, is it normal for the power to go out for a week? According to the recording on JCP&L, we may be restored by Friday. Hello???? A week??
I could see the delays after Irene as the damage was soooo widespread, but this? It seems that only some areas and not all over the state were affected.
Unfortunately for customers of JCP&L, power outages are not unusual under the best of circumstances, and when a major storm like this takes place, JCP&L's response always tends to be...shall we say...weak.
There are reliability ratings of electric utilities nationwide, and JCP&L ranks very poorly in these ratings, while PSE&G usually ranks at or near the top. Unfortunately, if you are in JCP&L's service area, you are stuck with them.
The only good news is that the governor had already ordered an investigation into JCP&L's response time right after Hurricane Irene. And, now that our esteemed governor has been directly affected at his own house with a prolonged JCP&L outage, you can be sure that he has a vested interest in pushing that investigation along.
With any luck, the company will be forced to increase their manpower and/or to sign agreements with more out-of-state utilities for mutual assistance.
We have JCP&L in Hunterdon. During the last 20 years I've experienced at least 20 power outages once during February for 17 hours. I called JCP&L and got no response so I called our mayor to complain about their terrible service. She couldn't get through to them either. They had the nerve to go to the NJ Board of Utilities that year to apply for an increase in rates.
This happened to be the year the shore lost power during Memorial Day Weekend (they are serviced by JCP&L which I didn't know). The businesses down there lost millions. JCP&L didn't get their increase that year.
I've spoken to the work crews from this company and was told they were laying off workers 15 years ago. There was a utility pole across the street that was badly leaning and ready to come down. Their remedy was to tie the pole with heavy ropes, propped up the pole and they tied the ropes to trees across the street and on our property to get it to stand straight. It took them at least two years to replace it.
During the power outage in February I had it with this company and filed a complaint with the NJ Board of Public Utilities. By law they have to respond and a vice-president called me about 6 months later saying the reason we have so many outages in Hunterdon was because of trees and hills. Well I've lived in northern Morris and Somerset counties and they have trees and hills and I never had power outages and I relayed that to him. He couldn't or wouldn't address that issue. I wound up hanging the phone up on the arrogant fool.
The best thing you can do is file a complaint with the NJ Board of Public Utilities and you can file online (link attached). Let them know their service or lack thereof is unacceptable. The more people who file a complaint against this Pennsylvania based company the better. A whole week without electricity is terrible! I really feel for you as I know how difficult it is to be without electric and hope it comes back on soon.
20 outages , yikes...makes me feel lucky with PSE&G , over the past 15 years ive only had 5 outages and 2 brownouts....the longest was 2 days and the shortest was several hrs.
Nexis,
How are you and I in the same town and you get PSE&G and I get JCP&L? Wait, what county are you in? I think there are several Washington Townships, right?
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