County officials are meeting to analyze why the county’s 911 system became overloaded during the weekend Nor’easter. County Executive Edward Mangano has ordered an immediate review. During the height of the storm, Mangano says some of the estimated 10,000 Nassau County 911 calls were transferred. They landed in emergency centers in nearby Suffolk County — or as far away as Albany. Typically, the system gets about 2,200 calls a day.
Mangano says officials “cannot let another day pass by without addressing this situation.”
He was expected to meet with emergency management officials on Monday to determine why the system was swamped.
New York City experienced the second-highest volume of 911 calls ever in a 24-hour period — 65,000 between 11 p.m. Friday and 11 p.m. Saturday.
Utility crews were making headway in restoring power. In New Jersey, for example, about 100,000 customers were without service Monday, down from a peak of 235,000.
The state’s largest utility, Public Service Electric & Gas, says about 72,000 customers remain without power.
JCP&L crews are restoring service to about 27,000 customers. Most are located in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties. JCP&L hopes to finish repairs by late Monday or early Tuesday.
Atlantic Electric, which had 42,000 without service at the height of the storm, has about 677 customers without power. Most are in Atlantic County. The utility hopes to restore service Monday.
In Connecticut, where a handful of schools were closed, two major utility companies said more than 57,000 customers were still without power, down from a peak of about 80,000.
By this morning, Consolidated Edison had fixed over half of its 173,000 outages in New York City and Westchester County. In 1985, Con Ed recorded nearly 111,000 outages during Hurricane Gloria.
Some Long Island and Westchester County schools were closed. Upstate, several thousand customers were without power.
The Long Island Power Authority is reporting 64,862 customers are without power.
{WCBS-TV/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}
