Residents of 55+ community in Toms River say there have been constant power outages
When News 12 first got the call just a few days ago, there were 10 outages at Holiday City Silverton on that day alone, according to residents.
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Residents at a 55 and over development in Toms River are sounding off about constant power outages in their community. They tell News 12 that they’ve had over two dozen outages just this year.
Margaret Antila has only been a Holiday City Silverton resident for a few months and has already experienced several outages.
"There was like three in one day. For like two hours at a time,” Antila says.
When News 12 first got the call just a few days ago, there were 10 outages at Holiday City Silverton on that day alone, according to residents. And the growing concern from residents is their neighbors who need electricity for their medical devices.
"But that’s what I’m more concerned about. It’s not just an inconvenience, people’s health is at risk,” says Antila. "People are hooked up to ventilators or they need the oxygen - that kind of stuff and I think that’s the biggest concern here."
People in the community, including resident Gina Tomasino, filed into the property’s clubhouse for a resident-only meeting.
"I don’t know what they’re going to say tonight. We normally don’t have an agenda. We’re supposed to have an agenda, so it’s kind of like a free-for-all,” Tomasino says. “People have been very upset about the outages, especially the elderly."
News 12 reached out to JCP&L and was told that there isn’t a single root cause for the outages. A spokesperson says the outages have been the result of many different things like cars crashing into polls, weather, animal contact and even equipment failure.
JCP&L spokesperson Chris Hoenig wrote in part, “JCP&L is aware of the residents’ concerns. We take reliability seriously and are always implementing solutions to reduce the frequency and duration of power outages.”
But residents say they need a solution. They say they planned on signing a petition to send to the utility company but that didn’t happen at the Monday night meeting.
