Update:
Restoration Progress, Customer Promise & Grid Investments
- PSE&G has restored power to more than 93% of customers affected by Tropical Storm Isaias. This exceeds our goal of 85% by Friday. Restoring power to customers remains our priority.
- With so many customers working from home and with others unable to go out, we understand how frustrating it is to be without power. Our commitment to restore everyone’s power as safely and quickly as possible is not a promise taken lightly. Our crews are working 16-hour shifts and around the clock to restore every customer.
- We encourage our customers to report their power outages. If you haven’t done so already, please contact us immediately. See how below.
- As of 5 p.m., PSE&G has made significant progress and restored power to about 535,000 of the 575,000 customers whose service was interrupted by Tropical Storm Isaias. The outage map reflects all customers currently without service, including those who lost power because of Isaias and those whose service was interrupted by yesterday’s thunderstorms and other causes.
- Tropical Storm Isaias is the most severe storm since Superstorm Sandy and the fifth most destructive weather event in PSE&G’s history.
- Investments in grid resiliency, including our Energy Strong initiative, helped to limit Isaias’ impact and speed recovery times. While past storms have damaged substations and switching stations, we experienced no damage at our facilities as a result of Isaias. A hardened, more resilient grid means quicker restoration times.
- For example, after Hurricane Irene it took us four days to restore 87% of the affected customers. In this case, we restored more than 90% of the customers in less than three days. We understand this is small consolation for those customers who remain without power.
Commitment to Customer Communication
- Communicating with our customers is a priority and PSE&G has adjusted its work force to support the extremely high volume. We have sent 5.2 million emails and 1 million texts to customers with storm preparation tips and restoration updates.
- On the day of the storm, our call center received as many calls as we do in an entire month. To date, we’ve handled roughly 500,000 storm-related calls and pulled in extra teams to place over 3,000 personal phone calls to customers. We’ve also reached out to critical customers and those customers who require electricity to power life sustaining medical equipment.
- Our social media team has responded to 14,000 customer issues, compared with about 450 over a normal four day period.
Restoration Information and Resources
- We continue our requests for mutual aid workers, adding about 100 this morning, bringing our total work force to 3,400 dedicated to the restoration effort. We have additional tree crews and lineworkers from 16 states and Canada.
- PSE&G’s remains deeply committed to the health, safety and well-being of our customers, employees and the communities we serve. In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we have adapted our storm and safety procedures which has slowed our restoration efforts. We thank our customers for their patience as we operate under these unusual circumstances.
- The restoration effort will continue through the weekend — possibly into Monday.
- PSE&G Customer Comfort Stations are open available in our hardest hit counties. To-date we have given out 175,000 bottles of water and 87,400 pounds of ice. Following physical distancing and state health guidelines, customers can receive free water and ice at those locations. Visit Please check PSEG Energize! for most current locations and hours of operation.
- The estimated restoration times customers see in our outage map are based on a number of factors including damage assessment, weather hazards and road conditions. Those signed up to receive alerts will receive automatic updates.
Important Customer Safety Notes
- Downed wires should always be considered “live.” Stay at least 30 feet away from downed lines and immediately call PSE&G at 1-800-436-PSEG (7734) or 911 to report downed wires.
- To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, do not run any gasoline-powered generators in a garage or any other enclosed space.
- If you are on life-sustaining medical equipment, ensure that you alert PSE&G in advance and notify your local police and fire departments. For more information, visit www.pseg.com/life.
Stay Connected with PSE&G
- PSE&G encourage customers to stay connected with us throughout the restoration process. Receive status updates, updated estimated time of restoration or report a new outage:
- Mobile app for Apple or Android devices
- Customer Service 1-800-436-PSEG
- Outagecenter.pseg.com, “Outage Map,” updated every 15 minutes
- Text “REG” to 47734 to receive text notifications