Utility crews in South Jersey have made progress to get the power restored as 102,000 Atlantic City Electric customers remain without power after powerful thunderstorms brought down trees and power lines early Saturday morning.

Joseph Rigby
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As of 5:30AM on Monday morning the Atlantic City Electric outage map shows 102,000 customers still without power. Atlantic County has 60,000 without power, Cumberland County has 16,000 customers out Salem County over 8,000.

In a press conference with Joseph M. Rigby, President and CEO of Atlantic City Electric's parent company Pepco Holdings, Inc. the company heaped praise on their employees for working long hours to help restore power and take calls from customers. Rigby and regional vice president Vince Maione also thanked customers for their patience and understanding.

They cited help from PSE+G and JCP+L crews as well as contractors who have worked with ACE crews to restore power.

ACE says they are focusing immediate efforts on restoring power to substations and substation supply lines as well as critical public facilities such as hospitals, fire stations, water filtration plants and police stations, a task that could take until Wednesday.

They are also wary of forecast calling for more thunderstorms, which could cause additional outages and impact restoration progress.

Meanwhile, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management says generators being sent to Atlantic County are for traffic signals. "The County is not able to supply generators to individual residences," explains the NJOEM.

 

In a statement on their website, the utility anticipates that full restoration of power could take "several days" as crews work to assess storm damage but they will work "round the clock" until all customers are restored. The utility expects most customers to be back online by Wednesday.

Atlantic City Electric Safety Precautions

 

Stay away from downed wires. Call 1-800-833-7476 and follow the prompts to report a downed wire or an outage.

Avoid crews working in the street. This will keep you and the crews safe, and allow them to work on restoring your power.

Visit atlanticcityelectric.com for safety tips and follow the advice of your local emergency management officials.

If you plan to use a portable generator, follow the manufacturer’s instructions and use only when necessary. Don’t overload it and turn it off at night, while you sleep and when you are away from home.

Locate a portable generator in a well-ventilated area. Never run it inside, even in your garage, to avoid the potential hazard of carbon monoxide. Do not connect the generator directly into your home’s main fuse box or circuit panel.

Protect food and refrigerated medicine with regular ice in an insulated cooler. If you are without power for more than two hours, refrigerated foods should be placed in a cooler. Foods will stay frozen for 36 to 48 hours in a fully loaded freezer if the door remains closed, and a half-full freezer will generally keep frozen food for up to 24 hours.

Turn off power to flood-prone basement appliances if it is safe to do so. However, if you have an electrically operated sump pump, you should not turn off the power in your basement.

Tune in to local news broadcasts for the latest weather and emergency information.

Take cover if necessary

 

 

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