Tens of thousands of homes and businesses in New Jersey lost power as a heatwave swept across the region.
NJ.com’s Power Outage Tracker, which tracks reports from the state’s four largest utilities, showed more than 249,000 customers were in the dark as of 9:18 p.m. Friday.
The total number of outages increased sharply after severe thunderstorms began across the state around 6 p.m., mostly in northern and central counties.
By 9 p.m., the storms had spread to parts of southern New Jersey and the Jersey Shore, prompting a series of severe thunderstorm warnings.
Wind gusts of 70 mph were reported at Newark Liberty Airport in Essex and Union counties and Perth Amboy in Middlesex County, while a 67 mph gust was recorded at Bayonne in Hudson County and a 64 mph gust was recorded at Sea Girt in Monmouth County.
The National Weather Service received reports of dozens of downed trees and power lines in Hunterdon, Monmouth, Somerset, Sussex and Warren counties after storms moved through those areas of the state.
The agency also received several reports of large trees falling on homes.
The blackouts occurred for the second day in a row as a large dome of high pressure raised temperatures from 90 to 100 degrees.
Due to the high humidity, it felt like 110 degrees or more.
In addition to the intense heat, many areas of New Jersey were hit by fast-moving thunderstorms that included damaging wind gusts and frequent lightning Friday night.
PSE&G, which had 7,703 isolated power outages mostly concentrated in the Union County area as of 6 p.m., “has additional crews on standby,” utility spokeswoman Marijke Shugrue said. “We are working 24/7 to safely restore customers who experience an outage as quickly as possible.”
“We don’t have any rolling blackouts. Prolonged extreme heat can put a real strain on the electrical system,” Shugrue said.
JCP&L reported 18,000 outages as of 7:45 p.m., but two hours later that number had risen to more than 185,000 outages.
There are no rolling blackouts to save energy, according to JCP&L spokesman Chris Hoenig. “There are isolated power outages” caused by “various causes, such as downed trees and power failures, which may or may not be heat related.”
Tinton Falls in Monmouth County has the highest concentration of power outages, with about 3,000, he said.
Customers are encouraged to click on the JCP&L outage map for their region. It will be updated with an estimated recovery time, Hoenig said.
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