More Than 15,000 Without Power As Storm Blows Through; 1,000 in Lacey

Tens of thousands are without power after a storm blew through Monmouth and Ocean counties Saturday.

A half-hour storm just blew threw Ocean County and parts of Monmouth, and Jersey Central Power and Light says it hopes to have power restored by 3 p.m.

The storm threat was issued for primarily northern Ocean and Monmouth counties.

“We have 27,000 people in Ocean County who have been affected by the outage,” said Stan Prater, Area Manager for JCP&L.

Prater explained that the towns hardest hit by the storm were Lacey, with 1,000 customers experiencing a power loss, Brick, which had 5,000 customers without electricity, Lakewood, with a total of 5,400 without power, and most especially, Toms River, which saw 11,500 who lost electricity.

The outages affected traffic lights throughout the area, causing traffic backups on Route 70, residents reported.

“We are doing our assessments now, for the storm which just passed through,” said Prater.

Prater could not give a timetable for when power would be restored to all residents in the region at this time, and commented that this storm differed from the one on Thursday evening, which affected more citizens throughout the state. The impact of this storm, Prater indicated, was more isolated to Ocean County.

For updates and a power outage map updated in real-time, please visit JCP&L’s website for more information on your area.