Chris Christie’s New Jersey Power Play [VIDEO/AUDIO]
Roughly 2 million New Jersey homes and businesses are still without power today after the devastation left behind by super storm Sandy. That means almost 5 million people are in the dark.
Governor Chris Christie toured storm ravaged areas of the Garden State yesterday with President Barack Obama and both are focused on full power restoration ASAP.
The power outage high was about 2.6 million says Christie and because it is now down to about 2 million.
"We're moving in the right direction, but that's clearly not good enough and I know it's never going to be fast enough until the lights go back on in your house. This is our number-one priority."
Christie says he's spoken with the Governors of ten other states and, "All of them have said that they are urging their utility companies to send crews and equipment to New Jersey…..We have commitments from all of those states to send servicemen, tree clearers, equipment and trucks to work with our utility companies, some of which are on the way now. The more manpower and equipment on the ground, the faster we can move."
"We have an enormously difficult task here in restoring power," explains Christie. "The President also committed to getting utility crews and equipment from anywhere they're available in the nation and having FEMA transport those people and their equipment to this state."
As of late last night, the state's largest utility, Public Service Electric & Gas had restored power to 30 percent of its 1.4 million customers who lost service. 900,000 PSE&G customers were still without electricity.
Jersey Central Power & Light reported outages for 943,801 customers, mainly in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Atlantic City Electric said 120,552 homes and businesses remain in the dark, while Orange & Rockland Electric reported roughly 54,000 customers without service.
Courtesy Governor's Office