North Jersey storm system leaves over 6,500 without power while flooding roads

A strong, damaging storm system that moved its way through North Jersey early Thursday morning left over 6,500 residents without power across the region in a one-two punch that dropped heavy rains, causing street flooding and road closures.

As of Thursday morning, nearly 3,000 residents were in the dark in Sussex County — a drop from over 5,000 earlier in the morning — after a severe storm shortly before 7 a.m. brought intense winds and dime-sized hail. Wallkill Valley Regional High School in Hardyston Township, which had already planned a noon dismissal for students to attend prom, dismissed students around 9 a.m. due to a power outage. Hamburg Middle School, which was gearing up for annual Field Day festivities, instead was forced to close due to a "continued loss of power," the school posted on their Facebook page. The Hardyston Middle School planned a noon dismissal.

Hardyston Township and Hamburg Borough appeared to receive the brunt of the early morning disturbance, with over 1,700 of the township without power and nearly 600 in the borough in the dark by late morning. Crews worked throughout the morning to restore power after initial reports showed nearly 80% of the borough and nearly half of the township had been knocked out, according to Jersey Central Power and Light's outage map. Stillwater Township, Hampton Township and Franklin Borough were also reporting customers without power.

Police and motorists took to social media to report delays on Route 23 and Route 94 in Hamburg Borough, with trucks and buses restricted from accessing the state highways, Franklin Borough police said in a Facebook post.

"All motorists are urged to avoid Route 23 and Route 94 in Hamburg and Hardyston due to trees, utility poles, and wires in the roadway," police said. "Traffic is expected to be impacted through the afternoon and officers are present in several locations while detours are being established with the assistance of the NJDOT."

Hardyston Police urged motorists to "be patient" as police, state and county workers clear roadways due to felled trees, poles and wires. County Road 517 in Hardyston was also shut down, but County Road 515, a 13-mile strip from Vernon to Hardyston was open, as was Canistear Road, police said.

Flooded roads in NJ

Mother Nature brought a second round of storms to North Jersey later in the morning, leaving several roadways flooded in Essex and Passaic counties. Downed wires were reported on Smull Avenue in Caldwell in Essex County and flooded roadways were reported in Paterson. That flooding extended to Route 80 in Paterson, per the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Route 17 in Ridgewood also saw flooding near Paramus Road, per the DOT.

Over 2,000 customers of PSE&G in Bergen County were reporting power outages Thursday morning, while an additional over 1,200 in Essex and 170 in Passaic were reported.

The National Weather Service noted in their 9:43 a.m. briefing that wind damage across the region from the initial storm "looked to have been enhanced by an embedded MCS," which stands for mesoscale convective vortex. The weather term is used to describe a low-pressure center caused by convection that pulls winds into a circling pattern, or vortex.

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: NJ storms cause road flooding, thousands of outages