'Like a war zone:' First storm of the season wreaks havoc

Signs of normalcy returned to Sparta on Thursday, as roadways became increasingly more passable, people resumed their routines and power began to flow more readily through town.

Suspended in bucket trucks, linesmen could be seen working on restoring power, while tree trimming units and other utility workers took breaks from their round-the-clock shifts, warming up in local businesses.

The sound of chain saws could be heard in Sparta Wednesday, as workers carved up trees felled by the season’s first snowstorm and a Hurricane Sandy-like feeling hung heavy in the air.

Defeated by the ice and snow, downed wires snaked their way across roadways, promising dark days and cold nights for residents in Sparta and the surrounding area until power is restored.

For Nicole Kelly, of Sparta, the first storm of the season has been anything but a winter wonderland.

“Right now I’m at the Short Hills Mall because I have nowhere else to go,” she said. “We evacuated on Tuesday morning and went down to my parents’ in Manasquan because we had a tree on our house, (there were) lines down (and) trees all over. It was unsafe.”

Kelly said her husband went to check on their property early Wednesday morning and described the neighborhood as “like a war zone.”

“A transformer blew right in front of our house on Monday,” she said. “We didn’t lose power right away, but we called JCP&L and then a tree fell on our deck and we lost the big wire that went to the street.”

Right next door to Kelly, Christina Repka said she captured the transformer fire on her cell phone, after she figured out what happened.

“The whole house vibrated and we actually thought it was something inside the house at first, but then my husband was yelling, ‘No, look down the street, look down the street!’” she said. “You could smell it; you could smell that ozone smell in the air.”

Repka said she’s been working out of her mother’s house in Jefferson, while her husband and children have been off.

“Luckily my husband’s a teacher, and he and the kids have all been off of work and school, and I’ve been going over there to use the internet,” she said.

Part of the reason Sparta took such a hit was because of overhanging tree branches that brought power lines down with them when they fell, Repka said.

“It would make us all happy to see JCP&L really do some work on their infrastructure,” she said. “When the guys were out, I pointed out a few trees that they actually didn’t trim – one of them was the one that wound up setting this transformer on fire – so it’s kind of disappointing to see they weren’t doing more back when they were doing the trimming.”

Dialysis nurse Erin McMeen said one of the wires that came down when the transformer blew ended up in her driveway.

“It was flashing and going crazy, and then it caught on fire,” she said. “And then one of the wires fell on my husband’s new truck that he got a week ago.”

McMeen said she tried to notify JCP&L of the situation but the company was less than helpful.

“We tried to reach out to JCP&L because we were getting worried because we had just filled the truck, so it had a full tank of gas,” she said. “We were just afraid that it would cause the truck to blow.”

That undercurrent of fear prompted McMeen to call back again, after she didn’t see any response from JCP&L.

“When I did talk to them, I said, ‘You don’t understand, you have a real problem here,’” she said. “‘This wire is smoking and you need to figure out a way to deactivate this wire right now. Cut the power.’”

It was a total of four hours from the time the wire came down and hit the truck to the time the power was deactivated, McMeen said.

“I just was concerned about JCP&L’s reaction time to something that could have been a total disaster,” she said.

The fire department put cones around the area when they came out, McMeen said, but she was worried for her neighbors.

“People don’t know, they don’t realize there’s a live wire,” she said. “They’re just walking by with their dogs and kids are walking by with their sleds. It was four hours of stress.”

In between dealing with her insurance company and a tree removal specialist, Kelly said that she’s just waiting for the power to come back on.

“They said JCP&L is in front of our house now, so I’m just praying it’s coming back soon,” she said Wednesday afternoon.

The storm hit Sparta particularly hard, Kelly said, and her family is far from the only one left out in the cold.

“From what I see on Facebook, and I haven’t really driven around, I would say the majority of our friends are out of power,” she said. “When I left Sparta, it was crazy. You get out of town and it’s totally fine everywhere else.”

Repka said she grew up in the area and doesn’t ever remember the power being out for days after a significant storm.

“I don’t know what is going on in Sussex County,” she said. “Are we being ignored? I don’t know what’s going on.”

JCP&L Spokesperson Cliff Cole said that any time there is a storm involving snow and ice like the one that just happened, the potential exists for power outages.

“This storm started off with about a quarter inch of ice, which was followed by a heavy, wet snow,” he said. “If you just take the snow, you probably wouldn’t have the damage that we have, but the combination caused a lot of damage to our infrastructure.”

The post-storm recovery effort is a two-step process, Cole said.

“Once we were able to get (JCP&L workers) into those spots where they could assess the damage, step two is to say, ‘Okay, this is what we need to repair and restore,’” he said. “It turns into a multiple-day event because of public safety and damage assessment.”

Power crews from Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio and other places in New Jersey have arrived in Sussex County to help JCP&L’s crews restore power, Cole said.

According to Cole, as of 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, there were 13,000 JCP&L customers still without power in Sussex County, down from an earlier high of 34,000.

“It’s a lot of people, and it’s still too many, but the needle’s going in the right direction for our restoration efforts,” he said. “We understand everyone’s frustrated, and we want everyone to have their power back on, but (JCP&L worker safety) has to be a priority.”

Giving a sense of the general mood of the town, Repka said Sparta, as a whole, has had better days.

“It’s one of those things where the whole town has been upset,” she said. “Our schools are closed (and) our country club had no power until last night, so it’s a little disheartening to see that this kind of thing keeps happening, where it’s just days and days of no power.”

During the storm, Kelly said her son was getting ready to go sledding while her husband started to dig them out.

“My husband was outside shoveling our driveway and a (falling) branch missed him by a foot,” she said. “So, needless to say, my son did not go sledding.”

Minus the cares of adulthood, Repka said her children have been making the best of the situation.

“The kids have been enjoying their little vacation at Grandma’s house,” she said. “They don’t care, they’re like, ‘Hey we get to watch TV all day and Nanny gives us ice cream for lunch!’”

The combination of snow mixed with ice resulted in a significant number of trees coming down, Kelly said.

“I think what happened was there was a lot of ice and a lot of the trees still had leaves on them, so we had that coating of ice on trees with leaves, and then Monday it snowed all day,” she said.

It’s been a while since she’s been through a storm that packed such a punch, Kelly said.

“We’ve been in this house six years and it’s never been this bad,” she said. “I have not been through anything like this since Sandy.”

Having lived in Sparta for more than a decade, Repka said her family has been through a number of storms before.

“We’ve weathered these a few times now,” she said. “This is the first time we’ve ever had damage to our home and car from one of the storms.”

Stillwater resident Cindy Tracey said when a tree came down at the top of her dead-end street, cutting off access to the main road, she called JCP&L three times to report the fallen tree and downed wires, to no avail.

“I run on a generator while the power is out and I need gas and we can’t get out,” she said.

It was only when she called the New Jersey State Police to report the tree that any action was taken, she said.

“Miraculously it got taken out around 8 o’clock this morning,” she said late Wednesday afternoon. “I was trapped for 24 hours and now I’m free again.”

Tracing JCP&L’s unresponsiveness to Hurricane Irene in 2011, Tracey said the utility’s response to her complaint is fairly typical.

“That’s Jersey Central,” she said.