More Chatham Businesses, Warming Stations Open

Many Chatham Borough business owners were able to open their doors Thursday with power mostly restored to the downtown area.

Quartet, Bliss and Coldwell Banker opened their doors to people who needed to charge electronics and, where possible, connect to the Internet, in addition to stores that offered their services earlier in the week.

St. Paul's and Ogden Memorial churches opened as overnight warming and charging stations.

Police Chief Philip J. Crosson said customers from JCP&L can expect to remain without power until at least Wednesday.

"There's no change since yesterday," Crosson said Thursday. "We're still saying seven to 10 days."

JCP&L crews were at the Chatham NJ Transit station repairing and replacing multiple damaged utility poles. Until the poles are repaired, the southern side of the station will remain closed.

According to the outage map at First Energy's website, 1,691 customers in Chatham Borough remain without power as of 6 p.m. Thursday.

The mulch center in Chatham Borough, located behind Milton Avenue School, will be open weekdays from 8 to 11:45 a.m. and from 1 to 3:45 p.m., and Saturday from noon to 4 p.m.

Residents can bring leaves or tree limbs to the mulch center. Limbs can also be left near the street for curbside pick-up of brush only, which begins Monday.

Where trees and wires are down, residents are still encouraged to stay away. The lines are often still energized, and where they are not, they could become energized as JCP&L tries to restore power.