WILDWOOD — Atlantic City Electric customers in the Wildwoods remained without power Saturday afternoon, but officials were hopeful that wouldn’t have been the case later that night.
Atlantic City Electric, in an update at 3 p.m. Saturday, had hopes that 80% of its customers would have their power restored by 6:30 p.m. and that all customers would get their electric back by 9. A fire at the Lake Avenue substation around noon Friday had left 24,000 without power.
Over 75% of customers who lost power shortly after noon Friday had it restored by 3 p.m. Saturday.
“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,” Atlantic City Electric said in a statement at 3 p.m. Saturday.
The company said it had maintained contact with its customers and advised them to consult the outage map or by logging into their accounts online or on the company’s mobile app for estimated restoration times.
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“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,” the company said Saturday afternoon. “We appreciate our customers’ continued patience as we work to restore their service.”
Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron said Friday the outage could have a significant impact on revenue for the city this weekend, calling it “devastating” and that businesses “could be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Some North Wildwood businesses suffered from the loss of power, while others got lucky. Several restaurants along New Jersey Avenue had signs outside saying they were closed during the day Saturday due to having no power.
“Almost everything was ruined,” said Gianna Gross, an employee at Potito’s Bakery in North Wildwood, which opened Saturday despite having no power.
“We had to throw away pretty much all of the baked goods, but we were able to make fresh donuts, so that’s pretty much why we’re open today,” Gross said.
Gross said the bakery was only accepting cash and had barely any customers all day. She hoped to close early unless the power came back on.
Nathan Brown, a Wildwoods BBQ employee, sat at a picnic table outside the closed restaurant Saturday afternoon waiting for some good news.
“We probably won’t be able to open today,” Brown said. “We had to close all day (Friday). They say power should be back on by 3, so we’ll see.”
Brown said the power outage was especially hurtful since the restaurant has been preparing for the upcoming New Jersey State Barbecue Championship, which will be held July 14-16 in North Wildwood.
Wild Fox Café, located right across the street from Wildwoods BBQ, got its power back around 10 p.m. Friday, employees said.
Down the street, Jenni Mac’s Snacks was open, as they were able to salvage their product the night before, owner Jenni McCormick said.
“I sold some of my cold items right after the power went off, and then I even set up some burners outside for a bit,” McCormick said. She said she was able to take most of her food home to store it in her personal freezer.
Jurassic Swirled, an ice cream shop in North Wildwood, was open because an employee’s dad loaned them a generator Friday night, owner Jim Dietz said.
“We lucked out. Otherwise we’d be a couple thousand down the drain, literally,” Dietz said.
Read More: Atlantic City Electric aiming for 9 p.m. restoration for all Wildwoods customers