Электричество не работает

В связи с прошедшим в субботу снежным штормом, отключилось электричество. Больше полумиллиона жителей только в одном нашем штате осталось без света, тепла, телевидения и интернета... Те, у кого есть дома личный генератор, могут хотя бы суп себе сварить, горячий кофе попить... А те, у кого нет генератора? Жуткая картина...

Сейчас получила имейл (да, нам посчастливилось, у нас есть электричество), где объясняется причина такой длительной задержки с восстановлением эл-ва (уже устала это слово повторять). Оказывается, виноваты деревья. Они попадали и оборвали провода. Теперь тысячи техников день и ночь заняты их восстановлением.

PSE&G Restoration Progress - October 31, 2011, 9:00 pm

PSE&G is making steady progress restoring power to the more than 560,000 customers affected by Saturday's wet, heavy snow that brought down numerous trees and power lines.

As Governor Christie noted earlier today, this storm caused more significant damage to our electric infrastructure than Hurricane Irene.  The majority of outages are in Bergen, Essex, Passaic and Union counties due to the extensive amount of tree and power line damage.

"While we work to restore power to the greatest number of customers first, we also have a large number of individual service lines that go from our poles to customers' homes and businesses that are damaged as a result of falling tree limbs," said Ralph LaRossa, PSE&G president and COO.  "The volume of these individual service line repairs presents a challenge to full restoration."

PSE&G will meet the state's expectations of having at least 95 percent of customers restored by Thursday. At this time, approximately 150,000 customers remain without power.

Crews continue to work around the clock to restore service.  PSE&G has 125 crews and 212 tree crews working on restoration.  In addition to its own crews, the utility has 91 contractor crews currently working and an additional 60 crews arriving from utilities in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, to assist in the restoration effort.

Note that electric crews work to restore power to the largest numbers of customers first, taking into account "priority" customers, such as hospitals, police stations, fire stations, water and sewer facilities, schools, and communications facilities (TV, radio, and telephone).  At the same time, the utility restores power to homes and businesses, starting with the circuits serving the largest number of customers.