Thousands Of Jersey Shore Residents Wake Up To No Power During Heatwave

Multiple rounds of serious thunderstorms in Monmouth & Ocean Counties have led to thousands of customers waking up to homes with no power this morning. A check of the JCP&L Power Outage Map at the time of this publication shows that there are nearly 14,000 JCP&L customers in Monmouth & Ocean Counties without power this morning.  Here's what's up.

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The worst of it is in Ocean County, where there are over 8200 customers without power, while Monmouth County also has a lot of people using flashlights this morning, with nearly 5500 customers there dealing with power outages.

And frankly, these numbers may be much higher, since I checked my Point Pleasant Boro neighborhood, which was without power since around midnight, and there were no reports of any outages there on this map.

Also, remember that the length of time the power is out makes a huge difference for the safety of the food in your refrigerator and freezer. We checked with experts on the rules of thumb for that.

According to the website Food Safety, most of the food you'd find in your refrigerator should be thrown out after only two hours over 40 degrees F. Some of those foods includes seafood, meat, poultry, salads, pizza, some cheeses, milk, yogurt and many more items.

You can check the complete list here.

As for the freezer, if it's been thawed and spent 2 hours or more over 40 degrees F, then throw it out. Many freezer items that still feel cold (as if refrigerated) can be refrozen, but please check the list for details.

As for the towns dealing with the brunt of the outages, it looks like the Point  Pleasant and Long Branch areas seem to be hit the hardest. And with a heat index over 100 degrees today, we can only hope the AC comes back on fast.

And we thank the crews who have to be out in that weather to get that power back on for us.