New Jersey residents
whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the force of Hurricane Sandy have
begun to receive utility bills that reflect power usage that would have been
flat-out impossible, considering not only the power outages, but also the fact
that many of the homes and businesses were uninhabitable after the storm.
Many New Jersey residents are reporting utility bills that
don’t seem to reflect the amount of power that is being used. In fact, many of these bills from Jersey
Central Power & Light seem to be grossly inflated, since the residences for
which the power usage was estimated were knocked from the foundations and therefore
uninhabitable[1].
The billing practice for Jersey Central Power & Light
(as well as other power companies) is to estimate the amount of power that
should have been used during a particular time frame and bill the customer
based on that assessment. What JCP & L failed to take into account was that
the amount of power used by many New Jersey inhabitants post-hurricane was
significantly less than what it ordinarily would have been. A woman who lives
in Seaside Park received a series of utility bills from the months of October
through February for the same pre-hurricane amount, only she hadn’t been in her
home in two months. When she contacted JCP & L, she was told by a service
representative that the billing would take approximately 30 days to resolve.
JCP & L has told residents who have received erroneous
bills that they are free to call their help line for assistance, but hasn’t yet
issued a statement regarding the billing practices. Recently, JCP & L
announced their plans to implement a 4.5 percent rate increase in order to pay
for the restoration and repair of the utility lines that had fallen during the
storm.
It is estimated that 10,000 homes in Ocean County are still
unoccupied, and many of the owners are still receiving estimated utility bills.
The inaccurate bills, combined with the intent to raise the
rates, have caused outrage among many New Jersey residents, who don’t believe
that the service that they received after the storm merited a rate hike.
Power
wasn’t fully restored for weeks after the storm for many home and business
owners, and the communication within the utility company was so poor that the
field representatives didn’t even know where the outages were, in spite of
local officials notifying of the locations. According to Robbinsville Mayor
David Fried, many officials will try to appeal the rate hike request, and try
to lobby for the option of choosing the power company for the region, rather
than having a power supplier assigned without negotiation.
[1]
Friedman, Alexi: Some Hurricane Sandy-Affected Residents Report ‘Wildly
Inaccurate’ Electric Bills 3/4/2013 The Star Ledger http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/03/some_hurricane_sandy-displaced.html
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