Verizon Wireless cell and data services were down for about 12 hours on Wednesday and not fully restored until about 1:11 p.m.
Ocean City was part of a widespread outage area throughout much of New Jersey and the Delaware Valley that started about 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The problem was reportedly related to Tuesday evening’s storms and affected hundreds of thousands of customers.
Verizon had no way to tell its customers by phone and posted no notice on its website about the outage. Affected customers could not make or receive calls, or use their data services. They also could not use 911 to make emergency calls.
Many businesses that rely on cell services were paralyzed by the outage, and many Ocean City visitors had no connection to family back home.
Verizon Wireless did not return calls or messages about the outage.
All electrical power outages from Tuesday night in Ocean City had been restored by Atlantic City Electric by Wednesday.
