Eight days after Hurricane Sandy left Marlboro and Colts Neck without power, mother nature proved she wasn't done with New Jersey just yet.

For more than one week line crews have been in both townships working to restore power to cold residents. But Athena, our first winter storm, went and ruined all that with a cold fist of fury and several inches of snow.

Mayor Jon Hornik said as of 7:50 a.m. on Thursday, JCP&L had yet to provide him with an assessment of the current situation.

"JCP&L is completely non-responsive at this point," he said. "I think they are overwhelmed"

Thursday morning, over 5,000 homes in Marlboro are without power and over 1,600 in Colts Neck, according to the JCP&L outage map.

"A lot of this damage was caused by the heavy snow, which brought down trees, which brought down lines," Hornik said.

Hornik said he has been told there are wires and trees down everywhere in Marlboro, and encourages people to stay off the roads if possible.

"Stay away from wires right now, there has been a lot of confusion with the utility company and we really don't want a serious accident to occur."

Roads in both Marlboro and Colts Neck continue to be cleared of snow and trees, which will allow utility companies to get back the townships and work safely.