BERNARDS TOWNSHIP — It had been eight days since Hurricane Sandy hammered New Jersey, and Wayne Mayor Christopher Vergano was frustrated.

His constituents wanted answers, Vergano said. He had none.

Vergano said Jersey Central Power & Light, which has some 3,000 customers in Wayne, hadn’t given him any clear idea of when it could restore power to neighborhoods, shops or even nursing homes.

"I decided to take matters into my own hands," Vergano said last night in Bernards Township, speaking at the first in a series of hearings to be held by the state Board of Public Utilities. "I recruited two of Wayne Township’s largest police officers, along with our OEM director, to have them escort me to a JCP&L regional office in Morristown in search of some answers."

He didn’t get one that Tuesday, he said, but was assured the next morning that 12 crews would be responding within days. By Friday, though, he said he was still waiting, and he decided to go straight to the top, calling the cell phone of JCP&L President Don Lynch.

"He was the only employee of JCP&L that was able to deliver clear and correct information," the mayor said Monday, standing a short distance from Lynch. "It seems incredible to me that I had to reach out to this man, the president and CEO of JCP&L, to get a truck to come to Wayne Township."

The mayor was one of dozens of public officials and residents to speak out Monday about JCP&L’s handling of Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. The utility is the first to face a public lambasting for its handling of Sandy, but New Jersey’s other power companies will be the topic of additional meetings in coming days and weeks.

Some — politicians included — were visibly angry Monday and demanded change. A few asked for refunds. Many echoed a familiar refrain: The company did not communicate well with customers.

The public bashing of JCP&L comes more than a week after it requested a $31.5 million rate hike – about 1.4 percent for the average residential customer — to pay for last year’s powerful storms. It’s also just days after Lynch faced similarly tough talk when he appeared before the state Senate budget committee with his counterparts form other utilities.

At that hearing, BPU President Robert Hanna gave a grade of ‘F’ to all New Jersey power companies for their performance in communicating with customers after Sandy. He also said restorations took too long.

Last night — just hours after Gov. Chris Christie nominated him for a spot on the state Supreme Court — Hanna was more reserved in his criticism, but he still said a deep examination of the response by JCP&L and others was warranted.

"In my view, the communications still need great, great improvement," he said.

It was also questionable, he said, whether dispatching of the some 17,000 utility workers who were on the ground was handled properly. He called the small army the largest utility force ever assembled, and said what they overcame was daunting – something that was never seen before.

Maybe so, residents and politicians said, but it was not what they’d come to expect in the year 2012 in the state of New Jersey.

Among them was Leslie Stevens, a retired AT&T vice president who lives in Basking Ridge.

"I was out for 10 days. I was not a happy camper. My bedroom on day 7 was 49 degrees," she said at the hearing, throwing a picture of her thermostat on the table where Lynch was sitting. "It’s easy to say everyone had problem. Yeah, everyone had problems – and you were the worst."

Lynch said he had empathy for those who went without electricity for long periods of time, and without suggesting his company performed poorly, admitted there is room for improvement.

"I understand and appreciate the frustration of people being without power for any length of time," he said. "I particularly understand the frustration of those who really had to wait until the last day or two to get power."

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