Public Service Electric and Gas Co., New Jersey's largest electric and gas utility, is closely monitoring the track of Hurricane Irene and is making emergency preparations should the storm bring heavy rain and strong winds to our service territory. At this time, the storm is expected to begin affecting New Jersey as early as Saturday night and sweep up the coast toward New England by early Monday morning.

In anticipation of Hurricane Irene, PSE&G has all available personnel ready to respond. The utility is also ensuring that additional supplies, such as poles and pole-top equipment, are on hand to promptly respond and restore service should the storm result in outages.

Clearly, a storm like Hurricane Irene has the potential to interrupt service. High winds might cause trees to brush up against power lines, and lightning could strike and damage trees or pole-top equipment. There also is the potential for trees to be uprooted given the recent heavy rains.

Depending on the severity of the storm, response times for both electric and gas emergency services may be longer than usual. PSE&G asks for our customers' patience and cooperation as we work to safely restore service as quickly as possible.