JCP&L Crews Mobilize from High School to Borough, Township

At shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday, JCP&L foreman Rob Kennedy pulled out a map of the borough and township and a yellow highlighter. He started showing Lt. Steven Hennelly of the Chatham Township Police Department all the streets he's already marked.

The highlighted streets are live again, Kennedy told Hennelly as he points to streets that got power back on Wednesday and Thursday. Garden Place. Mitchell Avenue. Garden Avenue. Gates Avenue. Barrow Lane. . Lindsay Court. Lafayette Avenue up to Longwood Avenue. Pine Street. Robin Hood Lane. Maple Street.

"We have over 50 miles of roadway [in Chatham Township]," Hennelly said. "When neighbors look outside and see their roadway, multiply that by all the roads in town.. ... [This is] devastating. From an electrical standpoint, it's catastrophic."

Several neighborhoods are using power backfed from functioning substations, since the Green Village substation and Gillette substation are still down. The transmission wires that supply power to those and other nearby substations run through the Great Swamp, and were disconnected during the .

After the storm passed, Chatham Borough was left almost completely in the dark, excepting a few small pockets near Main Street and east of Fairmount Avenue. Power was cut off completely to Chatham Township.

Now the reconnected substations are supplying power to a larger area than they serviced before the storm, because the other substations cannot be immediately brought back up. Almost every street had trees and branches blocking the roadway and wires brought down.

Kennedy understands the frustration of Chatham residents, since he, too, is a Chatham resident and he, too, was without power in his home for several days.

"They are, without a doubt, working as quickly and as diligently as they can to restore power. It's a very methodical process to do it in the right way," Hennelly said.

Kennedy showed Hennelly where crews were at that moment. Noe Avenue. Joanna Way. Ellers Drive. He showed where he hopes power will be restored on Thursday night. Lafayette Avenue south of Shunpike Road. Noe Avenue up to Dale Drive. Wickham Way. Jay Road. Meyersville Road. He shows where he's directing his crews to. Rowan Road. Vincent Street. Ward Place. He shows areas where the damage is too severe to get fixed Thursday. Dale Drive. May Drive.

As they talk, Kennedy fields telephone calls from residents, colleagues and officials. Some even stop by when they see the trucks in the high school parking lot. Some shake his hand and thank him for getting their power back. Some want explanations for what is taking so long.

"The borough was almost 100 percent dark. The township was 100 percent dark," Kennedy said. "To go from 100 percent dark to think we'll have power back right away just isn't feasible."