Public Safety was Never at Risk, Official Says in Wake of Power Outages Caused by Severe Storm

BAYONNE, NJ - Former Bayonne City Council President Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski was on hand at a city council meeting recently raising questions about a power outage that left Bayonne officials scrambling to ensure that emergency response remained available to all residents in the aftermath of a sudden, and strong, storm.

Severe thunderstorms struck Bayonne on Wednesday, June 24, bringing with it gusts of wind of up to 80 miles per hour and leaving toppled trees and downed power lines throughout the city in its wake.

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This left several challenges, including getting residents out of 16th Street Park where a concert was taking place and evacuating others when a fallen tree ultimately caused a gas leak in a residential area.

According to Edoardo “Junior” Ferrante, the director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, primary electrical lines came down midtown, causing a major power outage between 23rd to 27th Street that included City Hall, which gets its power from the 27th Street side of the building.

A generator kicked in and provided power to most of the municipal building, but it did not feed much of the police department, including the communications center – which had its own generator that failed to turn on, causing serious problems for the local 911 network.

With the power down, Ferrante added, officials immediately implemented a contingency plan, routing calls through Secaucus, allowing for the hundreds that came in to be responded to.

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Adding to the challenges, a battery backup system for the city’s radio network also failed, partly because these batteries were meant for very short periods to allow generators to kick in.

While all power was lost to the radio system shutting down two-way communication on all city channels, including police and fire channels, a vendor had alternate channels in place within minutes, allowing cops and firefighters to communicate, while the city, with the support of the Department of Public Works, shifted to the use of a secondary generator which also failed. A third generator from the 16th firehouse was then brought in with a “field expedient makeshift effort” implemented to get it going.

"I am in awe of the effort put in by our first responders and our DPW crews during this unprecedented outage," Ferrante said. "The residents of Bayonne were able to receive the same level of emergency response due to the hard work put in by so many, with the support of the mayor, public safety director, DPW Director, police and fire chiefs standing shoulder to shoulder with us throughout the night."

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