Wildwood, N.J. outage: Atlantic City Electric says power will be fully restored by 9 p.m.
WILDWOOD, N.J. (CBS) -- Atlantic City Electric pushed back its estimate for when power would be restored to customers. The latest estimate says all customers will have power back by 9 p.m.
By 6:30 p.m., the company expects 80% of affected to customers to have their electricity restored.
Crews have been working to restore power to thousands following a Friday afternoon fire at an electric substation. The entire island of the Wildwoods lost power, shutting down amusement rides and traffic lights, melting all the frozen custard and sending some visitors home early.
The company released a statement Saturday morning stating power has been restored for more than 16,000 customers. But some service interruptions may occur as the work continues.
Atlantic City Electric crews are continuing their work to restore service for all customers impacted by the fire at the company's Lake Avenue substation in Wildwood, yesterday. Crews worked through the night making repairs and installing temporary equipment. Based on the work that remains to restore service for all customers, we expect to have more than 80 percent of all customers, including the Wildwood Boardwalk, restored by 6:30 p.m. today and all remaining customers restored by 9 p.m. this evening. Crews are continuing to focus on very complex outages, including installing temporary equipment at the substation to restore all remaining customers safely and as quickly as possible. We are continuing to communicate with our customers regarding their estimated restoration times, and customers can always check our outage map or log into their account online or on our mobile app for the latest estimated restoration time for their outage. We know this has been a challenging event for our customers and we are working safely and as quickly as possible to restore service for all customers. We appreciate our customers' continued patience as we work to restore their service.
The company now estimates power will be fully restored by 3 p.m. Saturday.
On Friday afternoon, 24,000 found themselves suddenly in the dark.
Driving into Wildwood, all the traffic lights were out and police were on the street helping direct traffic. The outage made for a hot and hectic night Friday down the Shore.
"I'm sweating bad," Mario Masciulli said.
On a Friday evening in July, Sorrento II at 25th and the Boardwalk is empty. The lights are off and Masciulli says he hasn't had any customers since around noon.
"We're not taking anything out of the refrigerator," he said. "The only thing we really got is gas. I can make pizza, that's about it."
A sign outside Kohr Bros says all the ice cream is melted. The arcade games are off and many businesses on the Boardwalk are closing early and preparing to take a big financial hit.
"Substantial losses for everyone," Jake Tricomy said. "Anyone that's not involved in food is pretty much shut down. Not a good thing."
It's an unusual sight on the Boardwalk during the week of the Fourth of July. No major crowds and from Chopper 3, the rollercoaster at Morey's Piers is at a standstill and not moving.
There's also no water flowing at the water park on a hot day.
"Everybody is losing money because everything's shut down," John Concannon said. "It's like being out here late night but it's during the day it's weird."
According to Atlantic City Electric, a fire sparked around noon at its Lake Avenue substation in Wildwood. That knocked out power to some 24,000 customers in Wildwood and the Wildwood Crest area.
After sweating it out for hours, some families packed up early and headed home.
"We're actually going to head home early unfortunately, but we're gonna hit other Shore points on the way back up," Nicole Zaccarelli said.
The outage comes on a hot day in a popular week of the season following the July 4 holiday.
In 2018, riders were stranded on some Boardwalk rides after a power outage.
Wildwood said its Wildwood Boardwalk Friday Night Fireworks show scheduled for Friday night has been canceled and rescheduled for Sunday, weather permitting.
Investigators are still working to determine what sparked the fire at the substation.
