What’s Causing Wildwood’s Blackouts

What’s Causing Wildwood’s Blackouts

This summer might as well be known as the summer the Wildwoods didn’t have power as, for three separate times, some parts of the island have lost power.

It was back on during the first week only July when the first power outage of the summer hit the Wildwoods. The Atlantic City Electric Lake Avenue Substation located at the intersection of Oak and Susquehanna Avenue had caught fire which plugged 98% of the island into darkness.

While 80% of the island was able to get power 24 hours later, it took roughly 42 hours to get the entire island back online. This was done after Atlantic City Electric brought four massive CAT generators on the island to keep the grid online.

It was a big accomplishment by Atlantic City Electric, to get the power back online. Our local first responders did a fantastic job on keeping locals and visitors calm during the ‘dark days.’

Blackouts on the island only really happen once every few years, which is something that many thought was behind us, but then mid-August another power outage took place.

This one was different than the previous one since this only affected a few businesses and houses off the boardwalk and Morey’s Mariner’s Pier.

The cause of this black-out was due to a transformer situated at the junction of Schellenger and Pacific avenues. Eyewitnesses said they saw the transformer emitting sparks before culminating in a sizable explosion-like noise. Afterward, a loose wire was noticed on the street.

Power was quickly restored a few hours later.

This past weekend Wildwood hit the trifecta of outages when, once again, the boardwalk and one part of the island went into darkness.

Roughly around 7:00 pm on Saturday, August 26th, the power cut out again at the exact junction, Schellenger and Pacific avenues, as was hit just two weeks prior. Eyewitnesses saw yet another wire on the ground. This caused the same black-out area as it did two weeks prior.

Since the rides were still in operation, folks were safely removed from the rides with no incident.

Bruce L Cooper showed how staff members at Morey’s Piers were able to safely remove passengers from the Giant Wheel.

Staff is able to move the wheel by releasing the brakes and utilizing a generator, the wheel was rotated slowly, allowing guests to be safely taken off the ride.

(Shout-out to Morey’s piers who operate a world-class operation and put their guest’s safety first)

By 9:40 p.m., the power was back on.

The grand question is, why is Wildwood having so many power outages? Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron answered that in a post on his Facebook Page by simply saying that “We have an old electric infrastructure, and it is not built to handle all the new construction and modern technology. The electric company has to get in front of this. These shortages are not acceptable. I will be calling meetings with decision-makers in the coming days and weeks.”

As the summer comes to a close, we hope that Atlantic City Electric is able to get precautions together so that this doesn’t happen next year.

In case you were unaware, as a customer of Atlantic City Electric, you have the option to submit a claim for damages.

Despite their website’s disclaimer indicating “that we are not responsible for damages from factors beyond our control, such as storms or outside interference, and our responsibility for damages is governed by the terms of our tariff which imposes a limit on our liability,” the day of the first blackout, there was no storm or outside interference.

To file a claim click HERE