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South Jersey Utility Getting Failing Grades On How It Handled This Week's Storms

By David Madden

GLOUCESTER COUNTY, N.J. (CBS) - Several South Jersey legislators want the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to look into the response of Atlantic City Electric to this week's storms that left more than a quarter million people without power...most of them for days.

Utilities statewide are under mandates to improve customer communications.

Gloucester County is served by two electric companies. To hear State Senate President Steve Sweeney tell it, there was a marked difference between them:

"PSE&G absolutely improved their communications. Atlantic City Electric has not."

Gloucester County Assemblyman John Burzichelli understands Tuesday's storms hit the utility hard, but says they should have been better prepared:

"It seems like there is an inordinately long amount of time being spent on ramping up as opposed to repairing."

He, Sweeney and assembly colleague Adam Taliaferro want the BPU to look into how Atlantic City Electric handled not just getting the lights back on, but keeping customers and officials in the loop during days of outages.

"We feel very certain that we have followed the guidelines set forth by the Board of Public Utilities," says utility spokeswoman Lendel Jones.

She promises the company will "take any corrective actions" once things get back to normal and they get a chance to review things.

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