
An electrician from Michigan-based Newkirk Electric Associates works on restoring power to a home in Pompton Lakes, N.J., following a March 9 storm.
After a pair of winter storms hit the Northeast during the first two weeks of March, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy directed regulators at the Board of Public Utilities to investigate storm response by the state's utilities.
Murphy in a statement said he told the board to take a broad approach with a goal of improving storm preparedness and avoiding future long-lasting outages. As of midday March 12, the U.S. National Weather Service had issued another winter weather advisory for counties throughout the state, forecasting up to four additional inches of snow by March 13.
The board's review will involve checking to see that utilities are in compliance with the orders it issued in the wake of the 2012 Superstorm Sandy, according to a news release.
"We are going to examine what went wrong, and whether the plans for protecting and strengthening our grid devised post-Sandy have been followed statewide. We will look to see if all preparedness measures were taken before last Friday, knowing a major event was coming. If they have not been, that is entirely inexcusable," Murphy said.
Murphy also announced that hearings will be held in areas served by FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary Jersey Central Power & Light Co., where most of the outages occurred. On March 10, Murphy called Jersey Central Power & Light's response to the storms "completely unacceptable," as over 50,000 customers were without power at that time and the utility had told certain customers that restoration may not occur until March 12.
The state was hit by a nor'easter on March 2 and by another on March 7. At the height of the latter storm, more than 350,000 customers lost power, and about 1,286 customers in Public Service Electric and Gas Co.'s service territory were still affected as of 12:15 p.m. ET on March 12. Public Service Electric and Gas, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., serves about 2.2 million electric customers and 1.8 million gas customers across New Jersey.
Jersey Central Power & Light had 2,553 customers, or less than 1% of its service territory, still affected as of 12:17 p.m. ET on March 12, the utility reported on its website. The company serves about 1.1 million customers in central and northern New Jersey.
