For the FH Love of Alabama Power

"Ma'am, in my truck I have a chainsaw, poles, wires ... everything I need right there to take care of things in one trip. Here, they do things different. They have special crews for every different thing. I don't understand that." 

That was an impromptu imitation of an Alabama Power worker by Fair Haven Administrator Theresa Casagrande as she lauded their crews' efficiency in getting residents in the Rumson-Fair Haven area connected after 10 to 14 days without electricity after Hurricane Sandy.

It was all part of a conversation at Tuesday's Borough Council meeting, when the governing body discussed post-storm damage and issues, identifying an ongoing problem with Jersey Central Power & Light's (JCP&L) lack of efficiency in getting power problems resolved.

"This is not acceptable. This is a longstanding problem we've had with JCP&L. I'll be honest with you. It goes way back ... and it's unacceptable," Councilman Jonathan Peters said.

One of the issues Mayor Ben Lucarelli called attention to is the manner in which JCP&L deals with repairing and reconnecting disconnected wire heads to homes. While JCP&L requires homeowners to have their own inspections conducted and hire their own electricians to complete the repairs, Alabama Power cut several layers of corporate bureaucracy and handled it all themselves, Lucarelli said.

"That's something we may want to address with them when looking at the issues," he added.

Casagrande called attention to the fact that 50 percent of the trees cleared "were cleared by borough's DPW and they did an outstanding job."

She added that, moving forward, the borough will conduct an analysis on what preventive maintenance would have cost versus losing poles and trees that took power lines with them. In addition, what were permanent compared to temporary repairs will be assessed, officials said, such as switch boxes versus transformer replacements.

"Once again, they say it was 100-year storm," Casagrande said. "It's very hard to say you have to make every decision based on a storm like this, but i think there are some patterns that we've seen with JCP&L over time that are troubling to the borough of Fair Haven and certainly troubling to, I hope, the BPU (state Board of Public Utlities) and some other state agencies."

"We got power back," Lucarelli said. "But, the grid certainly isn't in a state it should be in going forward. It's gonna take a lot of effort."

In the meantime, as some, both seriously and jokingly, bandied about ideas of how to deal with what they deemed the ongoing, longstanding JCP&L dilemma, Casagrande joked that she'd vote to have Alabama Power take over. 

Grateful Fair Haven residents took it upon themselves to host a daily barbecue lunch for a few days for the Alabama Power crews stationed at Fair Haven Fields. The workers were very appreciative and left the borough with an autographed Alabama Power helmet. Fair Haven children also crafted cards for the workers. Both were on display at Tuesday's meeting.