Thursday power surge leaves City Hall in the dark
City manager charges $7000 on his own credit card for replacement parts
People who had Friday appointments at Asbury Park Municipal Court were greeted in the lobby of municipal hall and told they would be mailed instructions to come back at a later date, since there was no electricity in the municipal complex.
A possible electrical surge from a late afternoon lightning storm is being blamed for the outage, which shut down power around 5 p.m. Thursday, according to City Manager John “Jack” Kelly, who had just put the finishing touches on a letter he was drafting when it vanished.
“I was spitting nails when it happened,” he said.
Kelly and construction official George Selah commenced locating the affected circuit breakers and found a completely fried electrical panel, he said.
Utilizing 21st century smartphone technology, replacement parts were located from a company out of San Jose, Calif. and Kelly personally charged $7,000 to his credit card on the spot so they could be shipped out immediately, he said.
“I mean, what are we going to do, sit here in the dark for a week?” he said.
The parts are scheduled to arrive at Newark Airport today at 3:30. A city worker will pick them up and, hopefully, won’t have to battle too much Memorial Day weekend traffic to get them to City Hall so that they can be installed and the power restored post haste, Kelly said.
The complex houses the city administrative offices, municipal court and Asbury Park Police Department. The police department is operating on partial power from a backup emergency generator. City Hall itself has limited service and few of the phones in the municipal complex work, he said.
Out in the lobby of the complex, which offers ample natural light from all of the windows, Kelly had tables set up and greeted everyone at 6:30 this morning. Employees from the building and health departments joined him so that people could be serviced, however, matters that require access to computers will have to wait until Tuesday to be handled. Municipal Hall is closed Monday in observation of Memorial Day.
The Asbury Park Municipal Court will send notices out with rescheduled court dates.
———————————————————
Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook and Twitter.
