Ocean County car accident knocks out power for thousands

Power is being restored in Ocean County following a car accident in Toms River that knocked out thousands on Saturday morning. 

JCP+L's outage map shows just under 1,000 customers affected by the outage late Saturday morning, mostly in Toms River, Berkeley Township and Manchester. 30,000 customers were initially in the dark.

Toms River Police say Andre Alexander, 18, of Toms River was driving under the influence when he drove his 2005 Ford Explorer into a utility pole on Whitesville Road (Route 527) at Rivers Edge Drive.

The crash caused damage to power grid transformers which caused a power surge and outages.

Utility crews are on the scene making repairs but have no estimate on when power will be restored.

According to a message on the Ocean County Sheriff's Facebook page, the accident also caused two transformer fires. The Ocean County Sheriff's Department has also requested residents not to call 9-1-1 for updates.

Alexander was charged with driving under the influence as well as reckless driving. Additional charges were filed as a result of the DWI while being under the legal drinking age.