UPDATED STORY: Power Restored to Point Area

Power has been restored to sections of Point Borough, Point Beach, Bay Head and Mantoloking that had been without power for five to seven hours on Wednesday, according to Jersey Central Power and Light.

The number of power outages in each of the four towns is approximately as follows, according to JCP&L spokesman Jim Markey: Point Borough, 1,200; Point Beach, 800; Bay Head, 1,400 and Mantoloking, 400.

That comes to a total of 3,800, which is 1,000 ess than the original estimate of 4,800 that JCP&L provided earlier Wednesday afternoon.

The cause of the outages is that an animal, maybe a racoon or squirrel, wormed its way into a sub-station Wednesday morning, tripped circuits that serve residential customers and caused the outages starting at about 6 a.m., Markey said.

Markey said he did not know the location of the sub-station.

However, Point Borough Police Captain Richard Larsen said he believes the sub-station affected is on New Jersey Avenue in Point Beach.

By 7:15 a.m., 1,400 of the 4,800 had power restored, Markey said. By 11:15 a.m., 1,900 had been restored and by 1:20 p.m. all power had been restored, he said.

When asked if an animal ever made its way into the sub-station before, Markey said not that he has heard, adding that the utlity company will evaluate just how the critter got in and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Larsen said the power failure left some traffic lights not working, including a light at Bridge and Bay avenues. Power was restored there at about 11:30 a.m., he said.

"All our traffic lights are now working, and we haven't gotten any complaints from residents in the last couple of hours about outages," Larsen said at 1:40 p.m.

Larsen said there have been no accidents as a result of the power failure.