Gov. Chris Christie said thousands of added workers from across the country are set to arrive in New Jersey, after he pressed utility companies to speed up repairs.
Christie said he told chief executives of the state's largest utilities they must take extraordinary steps to step up restoration efforts.
"I made it clear to them that whatever playbooks they had were to be thrown out because we've never faced anything like this before," the governor said.
Governors from Ohio to Virginia dispatched repair crews to aid storm-ravaged New Jersey, Christie said at a briefing in Moonachie Thursday afternoon.
President Barack Obama offered to fly utility crews and equipment to the state on military aircraft, Christie said. Federal emergency management officials were also establishing housing for the workers at Fort Monmouth.
"You're going to see the results of that because the power will be restored much more quickly than it would have been otherwise because of these new people," Christie said.
Public Service Electric and Gas, the state's largest utility, said in a statement Thursday that full service might not be restored for a week or 10 days. No new timeline was immediately released.
Christie said he would make electric companies provide updated estimates once crews were tallied.
More than 1.7 million New Jersey electric customers remained without service four days after Hurricane Sandy slammed the state. That number was down from 2.7 million without power. In Bergen County, Teaneck, Hackensck and Fort Lee were some of the towns hardest hit by outages.
Gasoline and diesel fuel were also bound for New Jersey, but set aside for government and vehicles involved with the relief effort, including utility crews.
Christie also commended the state's teachers union for canceling its annual conference in Atlantic City. The event was scheduled for Nov. 8-9, days when school is normally closed.
With the conference canceled, Christie said schools should open.
"I understand that the teachers convention and those two days off is a statutory entitlement that was given to the teachers union but I think these are extraordinary circumstances," the governor said.
"I would hope they would do it voluntarily and I'm confident they will, but I would not hesitate to do what needed to be done to help our children get the education they need," he said of teachers working during the scheduled convention days off.
Concerns over voting are mounting as some polling places have been washed away or remain without electricity.
Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno said she directed county clerks to keep offices open over the weekend and extended the mail-in ballot deadline. Clerks were set to report by tomorrow which of the state's 3,000 polling places were unusable and temporary voting areas would be setup using military trucks.
Officials would work to get people staying in shelters mail-in ballots, Guadagno said.
Bergen County was added to the President's major disaster area declaration on Thursday, Rep. Bill Pascrell announced. Christie asked residents seeking federal assistance to call FEMA at 1-800-621-3362.
"Our job has moved now from saving lives to rebuilding them," the governor said. "We must move together to return New Jersey to normalcy."
Instead of trying to get people who are recovering back to school next week, we should all be working to help our neighbors to recover. It is not just the teachers who have to recover, but all residents... lets get our neighborhoods on the way to recovery and stop bashing one group or another. The school days will be made up as they always have been when snow or other events have caused closings.
2. My neighbor watched a private company remove a fallen tree from cable lines (not electric lines). He saw 3 - yes 3 - DPW workers stand around and "supervise". Did no work, just watched. Esp. in a state of emergency, rules requiring this non-sense should be suspended. 3. The teacher's union convention in AC - "it's for the kids!". What a joke. 4. Rules protecting companies from competition need to be suspended too. E.g., buying gasoline from out of state refiners or the Jones Act (restricting foreign tankers delivering fuel). Both of these happened, belatedly, but who knows what other restrictions are hampering the recovery effort? 5. As part of preparedness, states should have a list of bogus rules that protect and pamper unions and businesses that automatically get suspended in a state of emergency. For that matter, let's get rid of them all together!
http://alabamapowernews.com/private/ogaojGiFnx "We've seen a number of news reports about electric line crews that are being turned away in the state of New Jersey, on the grounds that the crews are non-union. Rest assured, our Alabama Power crews have not been turned away from anywhere. Our employees are proudly representing us in several states that have been affected, and have received a warm reception everywhere they've been."
http://alabamapowernews.com/private/ogaojGiFnx We need to make sure out-of-state electricians, whether unionized or not, know that NJ welcomes and needs their help. This false claim is only going to hurt our state's residents and needs to be shot down fast.
Also, unlike teachers, my promotions and raises are given based on performance. I don't use entitlement as a crutch.
Hard to get the truth into the heads of those who think the FOXIE news network is always right and does not have a hidden agenda of their own.
Also, if DPW isn't skilled enough to work near power lines, that's fine, but why have them involved in this tree removal at all? Have them do something else. I bet the reason is that there is a featherbedding union rule saying you have to have DPW workers there (remember there were 3!). This is meant to create make-work jobs for union workers and increase the cost of using private contractors. Overall it is ripoff to taxpayers. They don't even have the decency to suspend these rules during a state of emergency.