Snowstorm hits city many lose power

By Chris Sykes, Staff Writer

As of Tuesday night, many Orange residents, taxpayers, residents and homeowners were still reeling from the effects of the surprisingly destructive snowstorm that swept across New Jersey and the rest of the Northeast on Saturday, knocking down trees and tree branches, severing overhead electrical and cable TV lines, and leaving many people without heat, hot water or power for days. 

According to information posted on the official PSE&G website, on Monday as of 4:30 p.m., the company still had about 83,000 customers without power due to the storm. The utility company said that it had restored service to more than 83 percent of customers impacted by the snowstorm but that was small consolation for many in Orange who were still without power despite the company’s assertions. “I have been without power since last Saturday,” said Rev. Reginald Jackson of St. Matthew AME Church on Oakwood Avenue. “I live on 7 Oaks Road in the South Ward. I still have not seen a PSE&G truck in Orange.

My wife spoke to them and the first response was by Monday power would be restored; then we heard by Wednesday it would be restored; and now they say by Thursday – today – it should be restored.” Jackson said all of the uncertainty regarding PSE&G’s response to the storm and the ever-changing deadlines for restoring much-needed power and services to their customers has been very frustrating for him and many other Orange residents.

He said that he is not asking for any special treatment and he can understand that a lot of other customers and areas in different parts of the company’s service area were hit hard by the storm too, but he would have liked the utility’s response to be better. “One of the reasons why we chose to stay in a hotel was that I did not want to run the risk of my son, or my wife for that matter, getting sick,” Jackson said. “I’m also worried about my parishioners in addition to my family because I’ve had people calling me up asking me, ‘Pastor, what can we do?’

You tell them to be patient, but you also try to find a way to be of assistance. I’m not trying to get preferential treatment, but I am a little concerned because I’m not sure that anybody in Orange has had any power restored.” North Ward Councilwoman and City Council President Tency Eason had been without power since Saturday when the storm hit too.

As of Sunday night, she had been trying to contact PSE&G to see about getting power and service restored to her home and her constituents who were in need and she said that luckily she was able to do so by Monday morning. “I found a number Sunday night and my lights came on at 2:30 a.m. on Monday morning,” Eason said on Tuesday night via text message. 

Mayor Eldridge Hawkins Jr. said that the city has been working hard to cope with the fallout from the unexpectedly heavy snowstorm. He also serves as Orange’s emergency management coordinator in addition to his duties as mayor and said that gives him a unique perspective whenever any emergency or disaster strikes. But it also gives him the unique ability to be able to shift people and equipment to areas that are really in need or when they need assistance the most. 

“The recent storm was one that devastated the entire state of New Jersey” Hawkins said on Wednesday. “Orange, like other cities, suffered from downed trees and wires. Public works did a great job in responding. The crews under the guidance of Director Calvin Bell worked around the clock to clear the roadways for our residents. We were also diligent in relaying power outage concerns that affected parts of our community to PSE&G.” 

At-large Councilman Elroy Corbitt said that he believes Hawkins might be giving himself and the OEM too much credit. He said that he doesn’t doubt that the mayor and the city employees have been working hard to meet the challenges posed by the latest snowstorm, but he believes the overall response left much to be desired. 

“The storm certainly caught everyone off guard but I’m not satisfied with the way that it left our residents in terms of how much time they had to go without power and heat,” Corbitt said on Tuesday night. “I think the city’s Emergency Management Team could have done a better job of going out and seeing the damage firsthand and in terms of keeping the council informed about what was going on or what was being done.

I think that the Emergency Management Team did a poor job in responding to this storm that we just had.” Corbitt said that he hoped that PSE&G would be true to its promise and have power restored in Orange by today. But he said that he was not too optimistic that would be the case. 

“One of the problems that Public Works is having right now is that some of the trees that are straddling wires can’t be touched until Public Service comes in and does what they need to do because some of those lines might be live wires,” Corbitt said. “I think it’s ridiculous that people have to wait five days to get their power restored. I’m in the South Ward and fortunately for me

I did not experience any power outages, But people who live on my block have lost power. I’m right here on the Orange-South Orange border so I can see the difference in service between them and us. If South Orange can get power restored in one hour then Orange should be able to get power restore in one hour too.”