Residents in a New Jersey neighborhood have dealt with two power outages in just the last two weeks and as the summer heats up, they want assurances from their power company that another random outage won't strike at the worst time.
Tenafly residents say the outages have lasted a few hours, enough to burden both homes and businesses.
At the popular Axia Taverna Restaurant, owner Tim Valhopoulos said the loss of power put a dent in his business.
"You can't do anything, you can't answer phones. We just closed totally, lose the revenue of the day," he said.
Resident Steven Konesky said he's had to throw out everything from his refrigerator after the outages. Another neighbor got so frustrated that he bought a generator costing thousands of dollars. It's come in handy lately, he said, and many other residents ended up doing the same.
"That turns into a lot of money that people have had to waste just to keep power when the power goes out," said Konesky.
No one understands why the outages kept happening, though some speculated an antiquated power system was to blame.
Local
Utility company PSE&G acknowledged the recent otuages but said there was no systematic problem, and said in a statement it was "an unfortunate coincidence that this neighborhood lost power twice in the span of two weeks."
Residents are hoping whatever the cause, the problem gets fixed so that homes can stay cool and businesses can stay open.
