More than a million homes and businesses along the U.S. east coast have lost power in the wake of a weakening tropical storm Irene, and local utilities warned Sunday that some of the outages might persist for days.

A few energy companies reported making some progress in restoring service to customers in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and other areas hit by the storm, but New Jersey's Public Service Electric and Gas Co. on Sunday warned customers that they should "be prepared for potentially lengthy outages."

Irene was moving through Connecticut and western Massachusetts Sunday afternoon. The storm continued to weaken, with maximum sustained winds at 60 miles an hour, according to the National Hurricane Center.

PSE&G, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PEG), said Sunday that about 330,000 of its 2.2 million electric customers were without power all over New Jersey.

Jersey Central Power and Light, a unit of FirstEnergy Corp. (FE), has 373,000 customers without power in central and northern New Jersey, said spokesman Ron Morano. "There are still some areas that are flooded and inaccessible," he said. It will take several days to restore power to all affected households, Morano added.

Atlantic City Electric, a subsidiary of Pepco Holdings Inc. (POM), reported 108,457 customers without power in southern New Jersey.

Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) said that more than 72,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County lost power. According to a map of outages on the company's website, New York City's most affected borough was Queens, with 31,665 customers without power. Con Edison said it expected to fully restore power there by Monday morning. The company said that about 106,816 of its customers were suffering outages.

Connecticut Light & Power, a unit of Northeast Utilities (NU), said 624,529 customers, or 50% of its customer base, had lost power.

Irene first roared ashore in North Carolina on Saturday. Raleigh, N.C.-based Progress Energy Inc. (PGN) said that 176,000 customers were still without power as of early Sunday. The highest number of outages reported by the utility at any one time was about 280,000 around 2 p.m. local time Saturday, and in total, more than 440,000 customers have lost power "for varying periods," the company said.

Progress Energy said it "will take several days to complete repairs, especially in the hardest-hit areas, where storm damage was most severe."

Baltimore Gas and Electric, a unit of Constellation Energy Group Inc. (CEG), said there have been 453,551 reports of customer outages in central Maryland; about 160,643 customers have had their power restored.

In the Washington area, Pepco reported 173,941 customers without electricity, less than the 195,836 it reported early Sunday.

In Virginia and North Carolina, some 825,971 of Dominion Resources Inc. (D) customers were without power because of the storm, the company said. That's down from the 952,000 reported Sunday morning.

Pepco's Delmarva Power & Light in Delaware reported 100,354 customers suffering outages.

-By Angel Gonzalez, Dow Jones Newswires; 281-536-3064;angel.gonzalez@dowjones.com

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