Hurricane Sandy Brings Chaos to Princeton

Hurricane Sandy rolled into Princeton around 6:30 p.m. on Monday and left both the Township and Borough with more than 10,000 power outages, downed trees and limited or no phone service.

“It’s controlled chaos at this point,” Township Police Sgt. Michael Cifelli said on Tuesday afternoon. Police said they were appreciative of all of the phone calls alerting them to power outages and trees down, but asked that residents refrain from further calls unless it’s a true emergency—meaning a fire or an EMS emergency.

Although residents were asked to stay home and not drive around town, the roads seemed unusually busy.

By Tuesday night, it was determined that Princeton Public Schools and Princeton Township and Borough Offices would be closed on Wednesday.

PSE&G estimated that outages across the state could last until Nov. 5.

As of 5 p.m. on Tuesday, with PSE&G crews on site in Princeton, officials estimated 75 percent of residents were without power.

Borough Administrator Bob Bruschi said one of the biggest concerns remains the lack of power at intersections in town.

“Our biggest issue to deal with tonight will be the lack of power to run the traffic signals at a 9 of our 14 traffic signals,” he wrote in an email. “Some of these will be manned others we have placed temporary 4 way stops.”

Many homes in Princeton were hit by falling trees on Monday night, although an exact number was not immediately available. Inspectors were out on Monday to begin assessing whether the affected homes were structurally sound. One man was killed as a result of the storm.