UPDATE: More Than 1 Million Without Power On US East Coast After Irene
September 01 2011 - 3:47PM
Dow Jones News
More than one million U.S. utility customers were still without
electricity Thursday after Hurricane Irene, as tens of thousands of
utility workers--many of whom traveled from other states to
help--worked to restore power.
About 1.1 million customers in 12 East Coast states were still
in the dark just before midday Thursday, down from 6.7 million over
the weekend, the U.S. Department of Energy reported.
Thousands of line workers from utilities in states that were
unaffected by the hurricane have traveled to East Coast states to
help their counterparts in hard-hit areas restore electricity
service to millions of customers, the Edison Electric Institute, an
industry group, said.
Between 30,000 and 50,000 utility line workers have been
involved in the cleanup and power-restoration effort, including
local utility crews, said EEI President Thomas Kuhn. He added that
line workers have driven their trucks to hard-hit areas from as far
away as Colorado.
"We have a virtual army of people out there," Kuhn said in an
interview.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of utility customers in
Connecticut and New York were still in the dark.
In Connecticut, more than 258,000 were without power, or about
16% of the state's total customer base, down from about 702,000
during the storm, the DOE reported. Nearly 228,000 customers of
Northeast Utilities' (NU) Connecticut Light & Power were
without electricity, about 18% of the total customer base.
In New York, nearly 248,000 customers lacked power service, down
from about 694,000 during the storm, the DOE said. About half of
them are served by the Long Island Power Authority. The utility has
said it expects to restore power to 90% of affected customers by
Friday.
In New York City and Westchester County, just more than 7,000
customers of Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) were without power
Thursday.
In New Jersey, utilities reported nearly 91,000 customers were
without power, less than half of Wednesday's figure, with most of
them--69,000--in FirstEnergy Corp.'s (FE) Jersey Central Power
& Light territory. ConEd's Orange & Rockland New Jersey
utility reported just 7,000 customers were without electricity.
About 15,000 customers of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s
(PEG) PSE&G also were without electricity.
In Virginia, more than 178,500 customers were still in the dark,
according to the DOE.
Dominion Resources Inc. (D) said 181,000 of its Virginia and
North Carolina customers were still without electricity, with most
of them in the Richmond area. Richmond and other inland areas were
particularly hard hit by high winds that knocked down trees and
branches, toppling hundreds of utility poles and power lines.
In Massachusetts, nearly 68,000 utility customers still lacked
power service, the DOE said. National Grid (NGG, NG.LN) reported
more than 43,000 of its Massachusetts customers were without power
while NStar (NST) said 14,000 of its customers were still in the
dark.
In Maryland, more than 88,000 were still without power, with
more than 76,000 of them in the Baltimore area, served by
Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s (CEG) Baltimore Gas and
Electric.
In Rhode Island, more than 62,000 were still without power,
about 14% of the state's total customer base, with more than 97,000
of them in National Grid's service territory.
In hard-hit Vermont, 5,344 customers were still without power
Thursday, about 1% of the state's customer base, the DOE said.
-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468;
cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
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