Hundreds of residents remain in the dark today after rolling thunderstorms knocked out power on Friday.
And while crews continue to work, some people may continue to be without power until Sunday afternoon.
Atlantic City Electric was reporting 149 outages affecting 2,101 customers shortly after 9 a.m. today. That number was down to 1,471 customers by noon.
The electrical utility said assessment teams have surveyed the damage, while additional crews are working to trim back trees and provide support.
The storm knocked out power to 16,000 of Atlantic City Electric's 534,000 customers, Atlantic City Electric Region President Vince Maione said in a release. By 11 a.m. Saturday, he said service was restored to 14,500 customers.
“However, there could be some localized outages that might not be repaired until early Sunday afternoon,” Maione said.
Hardest hit appeared to be western Cumberland County. Some 664 customers were without power in the county by noon.
The electrical utility's outage map at 9 a.m. reported 1,371 customers without power in and around Bridgeton, with estimated restoration not expected until tomorrow. Another 200 customers were also without power north and west of the city, according to the outage map.
By noon, 1,114 customers were without power in Bridgeton, with about 150 without power in the surrounding communities.
By comparison, there were 68 customers without power in southern Ocean County, 49 in Atlantic County, 19 in Cape May County and2 in southern Burlington County.
The waves of storms came on the heels of an afternoon cold front that abruptly cooled the region Friday.
Temperatures reached 94 degrees around noon at the Atlantic City International Airport. The storms arrived shortly thereafter, and by 5 p.m. temperatures were in the low 70s.
Meteorologist Dean Iovino with the National Weather Service said that a cold front was coming in.
“It’s going to drop the temperatures a little bit,” he said. “Everything should move off the coast late (Friday). (Saturday) looks like a dry day and warm. Not as humid as it’s been. Temperatures will be mostly in the 80s in the afternoon.”
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the abnormally dry conditions of three months ago have shifted. Whereas 100 percent of New Jersey was abnormally dry in March, 87 percent of New Jersey was not experiencing any dryness as of this week.
Gary Brown, president of the Barnegat Volunteer Fire, said Friday was a busy day in Barnegat.
“We did 18 calls in the month of May,” he said. “And we did 32 today between 12:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.”
The company responded to seven lighting strikes, seven downed trees, and two structure fires caused by lighting. The structure fires caused little or no damage, Brown said.
“The most wild thing we saw, somebody’s sprinkler system blew the control box out the garage,” he said. “We had some pretty big trees down across the road, cut them down with a chainsaw.”
The thunderstorms caused electrical outages and downed limbs all throughout the afternoon.
At 4 p.m. on Friday, about 2,000 Atlantic County buildings and 3,000 Ocean County buildings were without power due to lightning strikes, said Atlantic City Power representative Matt Likovich.
“The lightning strikes on equipment, downed wires, things like that,” Likovich said.
Atlantic City Electric customers are urged to report outages by calling 800-833-7476. Customers can also receive outage updates by visiting www.atlanticcityelectric.com and by following them on Facebook and Twitter at ACElecConnect and downloading our mobile app at www.atlanticcityelectric.com/mobileapp.
Contact David Simpson:
609-272-7204
