Hurricane Sandy Coverage: Report from N.J.'s Griffith Electric Supply

Bill Goodwin, Griffith Electric Supply Corenton, N.J.

Bill Goodwin, company president, says two of Griffith Electric Supply's branches in central New Jersey still don’t have power, but that the Trenton headquarters location has been operational all week and sold 50 generators on Monday.

“All in all, it could have been worse. We were open each day, although we only stayed Monday until we got all of our generators picked up. We literally received 50 generators in Monday morning, and they were out of here by noon. We took "pre-orders" on Friday after we knew how many we had access to on Monday. I was very proud of our employees that stayed. They realized that they had a responsibility to our customers to help in any way that we could.

"The Trenton area seems to have been spared and there is not really any water damage in this area to speak of, most of the damage was done by the wind, which blew down trees, which in turn took down wires. Two of our branches, Robbinsville and Bridgewater are still without power. We also lost a 20' x 20' portion of the roof on our empty "flatiron" building. We had over 1/2 of our employees get in each day. We are at about 95% today.

“One of the major issues we have had to deal with is getting Twist Lock plugs, which are needed for the generators. Some of the manufacturers have had shipping problems due to the storm, and then UPS did not deliver either Monday or Tuesday. So although we had many on order from last week, we have received very few. Also, our trucks could not get out for deliveries on either Monday or Tuesday.

“In addition to generators and twist locks, we have sold many flashlights and batteries. SO cord was also sold with the twist locks. We had no deliveries on Monday and Tuesday, but I have seen a few trucks today.”