Thousands In N.J. Still Without Power After Wednesday's Nor'easter
WEST ORANGE, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- For those still in the dark in New Jersey, the power companies were making progress on Sunday afternoon.
Things were slowly getting back to normal for residents who have been without power since the second of back-to-back nor'easters lashed the Tri-State Area on Wednesday.
As of 5 p.m. Sunday, Jersey Central Power & Light had 11,588 outages, down from 22,000 to begin the day. PSE&G is working to restore power for roughly 1,300 customers.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy took to Twitter on Saturday afternoon and vowed to get to the bottom of the utilities' struggles over the last 10 days.
Once all power has been restored to every New Jersey resident and business, our administration will begin an investigation into what went wrong and how utilities could have responded better.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) March 10, 2018
After spending days without power, many residents in the Garden State remain frustrated. They said the utility companies were once again breaking promises and missing restoration deadlines.
Many residents took to social media late Saturday to vent their growing frustrations. Bob Johnson said he's been living without power since Wednesday's storm.
"You have to fill up the generator. You don't even sleep through the night," the West Orange resident told CBS2.
Rockaway Township resident David Hoffman said he kept the cold at bay with the help of a wood-burning stove.
"They've had a couple of people here from Alabama, South Carolina, which I don't understand," he said. "Why don't we have enough people here to take care of this when it happens?"
JCP&L has blamed the close timing of the storms for the delay in restoration. A spokesperson told CBS2 on Friday that all customers who lost power during the first nor'easter should have power back on by 11:30 pm Saturday.
That deadline has clearly come and gone.
"Yesterday I had firewood going throughout the whole day," Springfield resident David Lejuez said. "Everyone lost power. Neighbor left because of the fact that it got so cold overnight."
On Sunday morning, JCP&L told CBS2's Marc Liverman all remaining customers should expect to have their power back by 11:30 pm Monday.
PSE&G said it expects to have the remainder of its customers restored by midnight.