Miscommunication During Power Outages Affected Chatham Businesses

CHATHAM, NJ — In the two weeks since a swath of power outages impacted residents and businesses across Chatham Borough, a business owner is speaking out about how miscommunication affected his business.

On July 10, the Borough of Chatham Council, the mayor, and residents met with a Jersey Central Power & Light representative to express their dissatisfaction with the borough's two-day power outage.

The outage was caused by a substation failure, which resulted in the power company needing to bring in a mobile substation from another town.

The outages, which occurred on July 5 and 6, happened on hot days with temperature highs of 90 degrees, and the lack of communication from JCP&L officials left the community scrambling to get answers.

• Read more: 'Catastrophic Failure': Chatham Council Blasts JCP&L For Power Outages

Anthony Pascarella, co-owner of Pascarella Brothers Delicatessen, detailed his specific grievances with the power company after the two-day outage impacted his business and left them with no time to prepare.

Pascarella described how he and his company have been in the community for a long time and thus have had experience with bad storms knocking out power for extended periods of time, but that this time was different.

"I don't fault any of the crew members that work there. I know a lot of them personally, those men to me... are superheroes. What they pulled off during Hurricane Sandy was just spectacular," Pascarella said.

Pascarella said that in previous events, such as Superstorm Sandy and a microburst tornado that struck Chatham two years ago, affecting only a handful of buildings, including Pascarella Brothers Delicatessen, the power company handled the situation as quickly as they could.

"For this microburst tornado, they were able to tell us, 'You're looking at at least a day, maybe two.' So, we didn't blink, there was no feeling sorry for ourselves, we jumped back in and made some calls to figure out what we needed to get," Pascarella said.

Officials stressed the importance of proper and efficient communication, particularly for businesses like Pascarella Brothers Delicatessen, which required time to acquire generators and proper equipment to keep their products from spoiling.

During the July 5 and 6 outages, a constant moving time window for restoration was provided to customers while JCP&L awaited the arrival of its mobile substation, which did not allow for the business to take the proper measures.

"If we get that first message that says three hours, I'm not going to do anything. Three hours, we're in good shape no matter what the temperature is, we're fine. The refrigeration is fine, the freezers are fine, nothing is going to spoil. By the time we get that second message for another three hours, now we have to pay attention," Pascarella said.

Pascarella stated that he was able to locate two generators, but that even with them running, they lost all of their products in their refrigeration system overnight and had no idea when power would be restored.

By the time the power came back on, it had been out for more than 30 hours.

"We're not upset that the power went out, these things happen, but if you assess the catastrophic situation, you need to tell us, just like the men did at the microburst situation. You have to tell us if we're looking at at least a day so we can make arrangements," Pascarella said.

Chatham Borough Council member Len Resto and Councilman Frank Truilo argued that customers be compensated for the spoiled food and medications as a result of the outages.

"I'm disappointed to hear of the reimbursement policy of JCP&L is that they don't reimburse, and largely because I guess they think they are acts of god. Well, this was an act of JCP&L; this was negligence on the part of JCP&L. They should be reimbursing and we will go to the BPU to get that reimbursement. We are going to make JCP&L pay," Resto said.