Without power, ingenuity and perseverance appear

Mike Ciocco, superintendent of public works in Barrington, plowed snow through the night, then returned home yesterday morning to Winslow to deal with another headache: a power outage.

Short on sleep, he bought and installed a generator to keep his refrigerators running. With the well pump dead, he used a propane turkey roaster to melt snow to flush the toilets.

By afternoon, with no utility truck in sight, Ciocco had had about enough. He and his family were preparing to head to the Doubletree Guest Suites in Mount Laurel for the night.

The Cioccos were among several thousand New Jersey customers still without power late yesterday afternoon, down from 89,000 at the height of Wednesday's storm. An additional 26,000 Pennsylvanians were dealing with outages in the five-county Philadelphia region.

About 14,800 customers of Atlantic City Electric, which serves Ciocco's neighborhood, were still without power by 6 p.m.

The utility was grappling with trouble spots in Cape May County, where last weekend's storm knocked out entire towns. About 8,800 outages remained there, but that number was steadily dropping. Some people were on their sixth day without service.

In Wildwood, crews were going block by block to restore power. "I'd say three-quarters of the island is energized," said Ed Harshaw, commissioner of public works in Wildwood. "There are about six or seven blocks left."

As of midday, power had been out for about 1,900 Public Service Electric & Gas customers in Burlington, Mercer, and Somerset Counties. But by evening, only 91 isolated outages remained, all in Mercer County.

Atlantic City Electric was prioritizing areas with the most outages, said spokeswoman Sandra May. Most could be online by this weekend, she said, but some in isolated areas could take longer.

"I guess we're probably on the back burner," Ciocco said.

Down the street, the Gregg family was in the middle of cooking chicken cacciatore when the power cut out about 5:30 Wednesday night.

"It looked so good, too," said 16-year-old Kasey Gregg.

Yesterday, she and twin sister Ally were helping their father, Glenn, shovel the driveway. They planned to tackle the woodpile next, go out for dinner, then bunk down next to the fireplace overnight.

Glenn Gregg said the family would stick it out at home for as long as possible. Kasey did not like that plan. "I don't know if I can do it," she said. "It's cold in that house."

Shortly before 8, her prayers were answered. The lights came on.

Across the Delaware River, about 26,000 Peco Energy customers remained without power in the Philadelphia region, most in the suburbs.

"We have every crew in the field working around the clock," Peco spokesman Michael Wood said. "We have more than 200 additional crews joining our workforce tomorrow," some from as far as Illinois and Michigan.

Hundreds of repairs remain to be done, Wood said, each requiring two hours or more.

There were also pleasant surprises.

Molly McCune, a stay-at-home mother of two young boys, had resigned herself to another frigid night and more take-out pizza when service was restored at 2 p.m. to her home in the Silver Lake section of Lower Makefield Township in Bucks County.

An hour earlier, a Peco representative had warned McCune that it could take until tonight. "This," she said, "is a great relief."

Her neighbor Bob Ellis wasn't so fortunate. His daughter had just delivered him some hot corn chowder, sandwiches, and steaming coffee, but his power was still out yesterday afternoon.

"This is something else, this storm," said the 30-year resident. And one that inspires: Unable to call anyone from his home phone, Ellis resolved to buy his first cell phone next week.

Nearby shelters weren't exactly bustling.

The Red Cross opened a shelter at noon outside Yardley at the William Penn Middle School, but by 3 p.m. only two people had turned up.

More common were arrangements like those of the families on nearby Pennsbury Court, a small cul-de-sac where neighbors were making do - and making dinner.

Craig Zelin, 47, and son Colin, 17, were waiting for Zelin's wife to arrive for barbecue in their frozen backyard.

"If this is the worst thing that happens in my life, I'm a pretty lucky guy," the elder Zelin said.

A shivering Colin had just braved a cold shower. His father, a purchasing director for a local company, was holding out: "If the power doesn't come back on, I'll probably just go in grubby."

Across the court, heat was not an issue. Neighbor Chin Ahaghotu, 31, was praising his in-laws' wedding gift: a wood-burning stove.

After having cooked eggs atop the stove earlier in the day, Ahaghotu, a pharmaceutical manager, said he planned to camp out around the stove overnight with wife, Jennifer, and their 9-month-old daughter, Zoe. "You know, it's almost too hot," Ahaghotu said.

Another neighbor, Bruce Reigel, could have used some of that heat. "You can imagine what a joy the toilet seats are," said Reigel, 65, a mortgage originator. "That's a real good wake-up call."

Reigel said he escaped his 53-degree house by going to work and dining at Taco Bell. He said his wife, Eleanor, a sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics, "went out and got her hair done in celebration of the cold weather."

Reigel said he and Eleanor would likely spend the night in a motel. Like his neighbors, he had thought of cooking, but only briefly.

"I was going to bring in the Coleman camp stove," he said, "but that smells pretty bad."