No power in Belmar!!

[ninadd]

The main generator in Belmar exploded leaving no power in all of Belmar - not expected to go back on till tmorrow or even Sunday. I dont have a house their but just a warning. I just saw this on the news so it's legit. This obviously means dj's and other bars might not be open tonite without power. I'm not sure maybe call them first to find out

[Dark_Night]

Just got back from Belmar. Power is on. Good hanging with Prime,PIPDADDY(go mets),CIGS(sorry dude,accident with the car,will explain),DAHYPE(ADV rulz). And of course SPYGIRL!! . Power came on at about 7 pm or so.

[thehype]

after hearing reports that power wasn't goin to be on till 11pm, just a bit after 7 the lights went on in DJAIS and the place erupted

[braveheart24]

got to djais around 9 place was goin crazy then all of a sudden round 1130 place was packed had a great time

[bigsteve8]

Place definitely went reediculously crazy when the power came back. . .cant blame em.

[heynow]

Electrical outages cause a meltdown in Seaside Heights

Monday, July 07, 2003

BY MAURA McDERMOTT

Star-Ledger Staff

Persistent power outages in Seaside Heights and surrounding towns yesterday trapped anxious riders on Ferris wheels, left hordes of vacationers sweltering without air conditioning and forced police officers to act as human traffic lights.

On what was supposed to be a July Fourth weekend of hot sun, chilled drinks and cold cash at the Shore -- where weeks of foul weather have exasperated vacationers and merchants alike -- holiday crowds instead were treated to more than 34 hours of spotty power and periods of eerie quiet on the boardwalk.

"It happens every year," fumed Sharon Franz, a manager at Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, which lost an estimated 80 percent of its usual customers. "We finally get a weekend without rain and now we've got problems with the power company?"

The electricity was still out in Seaside Heights and Lavallette late last night, leaving traffic lights dark during the weekend-ending exodus. Police struggled to direct thousands of sweaty, cranky drivers eager to get out of town.

Blame for the outages, which also stretched into Seaside Park, Island Heights, Ortley Beach and the east side of Dover Township, fell on Jersey Central Power & Light, the utility that came under fire this winter for what state regulators called its inadequate response to outages after major storms.

It was unclear what caused the weekend outages because workers were busy restoring power, JCP&L spokesman Scott Surgeoner said.

"We really don't have a cause or causes identified, and we really won't start working on that until we have everyone back in service," he said.

He said he could not estimate how many customers were affected or how many crews were out responding to the blackouts.

Councilman William Akers of Seaside Heights said he was fed up with the blackouts. The borough's electric utility buys power from a Pennsylvania company, but the electricity still must travel on JCP&L lines and those lines have failed repeatedly, he said.

"I want their preventive maintenance records," he said. "They've got to answer to us for this."

The state Board of Public Utilities imposed new performance standards on JCP&L in February and threatened stiff fines if the utility failed to meet them.

The outages that began Saturday morning were due to a fault in an underground line somewhere in the Ortley Beach and Mantoloking area, Surgeoner said.

Power flickered in the area all day. One blackout lasted from 10 p.m. until 2:30 a.m. yesterday, forcing police to set up checkpoints with an electrified sign diverting drivers from Seaside Heights.

Nearly 100,000 people flood the tiny borough during a typical July Fourth weekend, and local officers, State Police and sheriff's officers worked 16-hour days to keep the peace, Seaside Heights Lt. David Szalkowski said.

Nobody panicked, and there were no major accidents or crimes, he said.

"We were overprepared for the weekend anyway, so we had enough manpower," he said.

But the troubles weren't over Saturday night.

Yesterday about 11 a.m., two heavy-duty wires along Route 35 in Ortley Beach fell, causing further blackouts. Power was restored by 1:15 p.m. but failed again about 5 p.m. after smoke rose from an underground circuit in the Seaside Heights area, indicating another fault.

"It's not long before the sun sets in a few hours and it gets harder to control things," Akers noted last evening.

Surgeoner said the utility was doing everything in its power to restore service and called the outages a series of unfortunate coincidences.

"We have all available crews in the field," he said. "We are doing our best to deliver reliable service. It's a job we take very seriously."

Seaside Heights, whose attractions ground to a halt intermittently Saturday and yesterday, suffered troubles large and small due to the outages.

First aid squads treated 25 to 30 beachgoers who fainted in the heat, more than twice the usual number, and a cancer patient had to store her medications in a squad's refrigerator so the drugs wouldn't be ruined by the heat, said Capt. Marie Rice of Tri-Boro First Aid.

Amusement parks had to bring roller coasters back to their stations and rotate Ferris wheels by hand to free riders trapped when the power failed. Crowds were one-third of their usual size at Casino Pier, which lost more than $100,000 in business, said Louis Cirigliano, general manager.

The pier is considering buying its own generators.

"It's too late to get last night back, but we're not going to let this happen again," he said.

Restaurants and grocery stores lost power to their refrigerators and air conditioners, fouling food and making customers grouchy.

Ice cream became too soft to scoop, so Salty's Ice Cream Parlour workers ladled the sweet stuff into bowls topped with dunce-cap cones as sweaty customers lined up around the block.

"It's been totally crazy here," said Britta Wenzel, manager of the Lavallette store.

Sam Hammer, owner of Crab's Claw Inn in Lavallette, said he spent $1,000 on extra batteries and ice. He missed out on more than $10,000 in expected income, he said, because all he could serve his testy customers was sandwiches and salads.

"This has been going on for several years now and it just gets worse and worse and worse," he said. "We can't handle the business here because they can't handle the power."

A few customers at the 15-room Sea Gem Motel were so hot and sticky that they requested refunds.

"It makes for an unpleasant stay for the guests," acknowledged Mike Dicecco, a manager at the motel.

The unrelenting heat prompted some to reach for superlatives.

"Now we know what it's like to live in a Third World country," said Joan Elias, a sales associate at Arthur Rue Agency in Seaside Park, who said that families who had rented condos fled to hotels in towns that still had power. "You camp out, sleep out under the stars, get out your barbecue grill and eat veggie burgers because they won't go bad."

Staff writers Tom Feeney, Jacqueline Stasiuk and John Hassell contributed to this report.