The state Board of Public Utilities will review Atlantic City Electric's response to a powerful storm that knocked out power to thousands of New Jersey homes and businesses according to the Press of Atlantic City.

Damage from Tuesday's storm as an Atlantic City Electric crew makes repairs
Damage from Tuesday's storm as an Atlantic City Electric crew makes repairs (ACE)
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ACE announced Tuesday night that it has completed efforts to restore electric to approximately 280,000 customers.

The BPU received 85 complaints about the utility's response to the storm, reports the newspaper, and expects to have a preliminary review ready for its July 22 meeting.

According to an ACE press release, the heavy rain and damaging winds from a second round of storms that hit the state Saturday "hampered restoration after massive damage from the macroburst storm on Tuesday, June 23."

The utility company said last week's storm caused outages that were more widespread than those that occurred during Hurricane Sandy or the June, 2012 derecho - which was an extended weather event consisting of prolonged high winds. According to ACE, "during the height of the 2012 derecho, 206,000 Atlantic City Electric customers lost power. Hurricane Sandy caused more than 220,000 power outages."

“We share our customers’ frustration over the extensive repairs needed to fix the massive damage to our infrastructure and appreciate everyone’s patience as we worked around the clock to restore power as quickly and safely as possible,” Susan Coan, Atlantic City Electric regional vice president said in a press release. “Now that we have all service restored, we will do what we do after every major storm — take time to analyze our performance and find ways to improve our efficiency and our communications. We learn something new from each event, and we use those lessons to better serve our customers and communities.”

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