Power: A million have it back, many more don’t

More than a million customers have gotten their power back in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including a half-million Peco customers.

But many more - about 2.8 million - were still in the dark as of early afternoon.

On the second day after the onslaught of superstorm Sandy, thousands of workers on electrical and tree crews were continuing a mad round-the-clock rush to get all the lights back on.

In all, more than 8 million people from North Carolina to Maine are estimated to have lost power because of the storm - more than half of them in New York and New Jersey. Sandy-related snow, topping two feet in some places, even caused outages in West Virginia and western Maryland.

Still in the dark in Southeastern Pennsylvania mid-afternoon were about 350,000 homes and businesses served by Peco, as well as tens of thousands served by two other utilities. That was was an improvement of more than 200,000 since Tuesday morning.

A record-shattering 850,000 customers - more than half of Peco's 1.6 million - lost power at some point during the storm, so more than more half of the disconnected have been reconnected.

But don't expect the other half to take another day and a half. The number of smaller problems dwarfs the number of big ones, which got first priority.

"We're still telling customers it's going to take close to a week to restore everyone," said spokeswoman Martha Phan.

"Customers in isolated small pockets are unfortunately the last ones we're going to get to," she said, adding that estimated restoration times are available by calling 1-800-841-4141, the same number to report outages.

Even harder hit were New Jersey utilities PSE&G and Jersey Central Power & Light, which together had nearly 2.4 million customers off the grid as Tuesday afternoon.

PSE&G, though, has restored power to a half-million, cutting its total to 900,000, as of noon. Bringing three flooded substations back on line Tuesday brought power back to Newark and Elizabeth in North Jersey.

A record-setting 1.4 million of its 2.2 million electrical customers lost power. PSE&G serves a highly populated strip that runs from Gloucester County to far North Jersey.

Camden and Burlington Counties together had more than 25,000 unplugged home or businesses, including more than 10,000 in Cherry Hill and at least 2,000 each in Pennsauken, Edgewater Park, Florence, Manfield and Willingboro, according to PSE&G's online charts.

Nearly 90 percent of Jersey Central's customers lost power - and were still without power this afternoon.

The latest count, as of 1:30 p.m., was 966,000 - a higher figure than was reported Monday morning.

More than 50 transmission lines needed to be repaired before the utility could address problems at substations, spokesman Ron Morano explained.

Even with 4,000 workers tackling the problems round-the-clock, full restoration could take ten days, he said.

Worst off were two coastal counties, Monmouth, with 264,000 out, and Ocean, with 203,000, according to the company's website.

Atlantic City Electric had 126,000 customers without power this afternoon, down nearly 100,000 from the outage peak. About 69,000 of those still out were in Atlantic County, another 36,000 in Ocean County.

The utility said it hopes to have 90 percent of its mainland customers restored by late Sunday.

As of early afternoon, more than two-thirds of Peco's outages were in two counties, Bucks, with 161,000 customers out, and Montgomery, with 121,000. The others: 35,000 in Philadelphia, 14,000 in Chester County, 19,000 in Delaware County.

In Bucks, add in customers of two other utilities - 22,400 for PPL Electric and 6,000 for First Energy's Met Ed - and the county's total rises to about 190,000, rivaling even hard-hit counties in New Jersey.

Montgomery County's grand total this morning was about 12,000 higher as well, about 150,000 in all.

PPL, which serves much of the eastern half of Pennsylvania, had 261,000 outages as just before 2 p.m., including 90,000 in Lehigh County and 37,000 in Northampton. Power was restored to more than 140,000 customers since Tuesday morning.

First Energy had 146,000 outages statewide, including 45,000 in Northampton and about 35,000 in Berks.

Delmarva Power & Light customers had about 7,000 customers still in the dark this afternoon in Delaware and Eastern Maryland.