Days after severe storms ripped through New Jersey on Friday and Saturday nights, tens of thousands of residents remain without power — and for many, the end is still not in sight.
As of early Tuesday morning, more than 22,500 homes and businesses across the state had no electricity. The hardest-hit utility, JCP&L, reported nearly 19,570 customers still in the dark, while PSE&G added another 2,734 to the count. Atlantic City Electric and Rockland & Orange accounted for the rest.
Morris County has taken the worst of it. More than 8,000 JCP&L customers there remain without power — a number that was actually higher Monday morning, when outages in the county topped 17,000. In the townships of Harding and Morris, the situation is especially grim: more than half of homes in Harding are still powerless, and residents in both towns have been told not to expect restoration until 11:30 p.m. Thursday.
Sussex County is also reeling. More than 2,600 customers remain without power, with roughly 20% of residents in the rural townships of Green, Montague, and Wantage still waiting. Those areas are expected to come back online by Wednesday night.
Restoration efforts have been slow, partly due to new rounds of thunderstorms and heavy rain that battered the region Monday, setting back crews already working around the clock. JCP&L said it had deployed more than 2,500 workers to restore service.
The prolonged outage has sparked political backlash. Several elected officials publicly criticized Gov. Mikie Sherrill for not declaring a state of emergency — a step that would have unlocked additional resources and coordination. Sherrill defended her administration, saying the state Office of Emergency Management has been actively working with affected communities throughout the crisis.
At the peak of the storms Friday night, more than 249,000 customers across New Jersey were without power. While that number has dropped significantly, for the families still sitting in the dark — some now entering their fourth day without electricity — that progress is cold comfort.
