Nearly 2 Million Still Without Power In US East Coast After Irene
August 31 2011 - 2:34PM
Dow Jones News
Nearly 2 million U.S. utility customers were living through
their third or fourth day without electricity following Hurricane
Irene, the U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday.
More than 1.8 million utility customers in 14 East Coast states
were still in the dark late Wednesday morning, down from 6.7
million when the hurricane swept up the coast over the weekend.
Many utilities relied on crews on loan from utilities in other
states, as well as hired contractors, to help clear trees and
branches and repair electricity facilities.
Long after the wind and rain died down, the storm has left
flooding in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, making some areas
inaccessible by car and truck and hampering power restoration
efforts.
In Connecticut, more than 366,000 were without power Wednesday,
down from about 702,000 during the storm, the DOE reported. More
than 300,000 customers of Northeast Utilities' (NU) Connecticut
Light & Power were still in the dark, about one quarter of the
total customer base.
In New York, more than 323,000 customers were without
electricity, with more than half of them--189,500--served by the
Long Island Power Authority.
In New York City and Westchester County, more than 19,000
customers of Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) were in the dark
Wednesday.
Almost 190,000 in New Jersey were without power, most of them
customers of FirstEnergy Corp.'s (FE) Jersey Central Power &
Light. More than 15,000 customers of ConEd's Orange & Rockland
utility also were without electricity, while more than 42,000
customers of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s (PEG) PSE&G
were still without electricity.
In Virginia, more than 287,000 customers were still in the dark,
many of them for the fourth day.
Dominion Resources Inc. (D) said it has restored power to 77% of
customers affected by the storm, although nearly 250,000 of its
Virginia customers were still without electricity Wednesday.
Richmond and other inland areas were particularly hard hit by
Irene's high winds that lasted as long as 12 hours in some areas.
The wind knocked down trees and branches, which in turn toppled
hundreds of utility poles and power lines, said Dominion spokesman
Dan Donovan.
Dominion had 7,000 people working on the restoration effort,
many of them from utilities in Michigan, Indiana and five other
states, as well as contractors and retired Dominion employees,
Donovan said.
In Massachusetts, about 144,000 utility customers still lacked
power service, the DOE said. National Grid (NGG, NG.LN) recently
reported more than 100,000 of its Massachusetts customers were
without power while NStar (NST) said it had 35,000 outages.
In Maryland, more than 171,000 were still without power, with
140,000 of them in the Baltimore area, served by Constellation
Energy Group Inc.'s (CEG) Baltimore Gas and Electric.
In Rhode Island, more than 112,000 were still without power,
with more than 97,000 of them in National Grid's service
territory.
-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468;
cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
--Eric Holthaus contributed to this article
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