Fewer than a million U.S. utility customers were still without
electricity Thursday afternoon because of Hurricane Irene's
aftereffects, as tens of thousands of utility workers, many of them
from other states, worked to restore power.
About 980,760 customers in 11 East Coast states were still in
the dark Thursday afternoon, 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 the affected states to
help utilities in hard-hit areas restore electricity service, said
the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group.
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.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of utility customers in
Connecticut, New York and Virginia were still in the dark.
In Connecticut, more than 252,000 were without power, or about
16% of the state's total customer base, down from about 702,000
during the storm, the DOE reported. More than 204,000 customers of
Northeast Utilities' (NU) Connecticut Light & Power were
without electricity, about 16% of the total customer base.
In New York, nearly 177,000 customers lacked power service, the
DOE said. Most of them, some 165,000 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, fewer than 4,400
customers of Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) were still without power
Thursday.
In New Jersey, less than 82,000 customers were still without
power. Most of them, some 67,000, were in FirstEnergy Corp.'s (FE)
Jersey Central Power & Light territory. FirstEnergy said more
than 100 additional line workers would join the company's 2,900
employees on the ground to help with restorations.
About 5,500 customers of ConEd's Orange & Rockland New
Jersey utility were without electricity. Fewer than 7,500 customers
of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s (PEG) PSE&G also were
without electricity.
In Virginia, fewer than 169,000 customers were still in the
dark, down from more than 900,000 during the storm, according to
the DOE.
Dominion Resources Inc. (D) said fewer than 156,000 of its
Virginia and North Carolina customers were still without
electricity, with about three-quarters 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, fewer than 54,000 utility customers still
lacked power service, the DOE said. National Grid (NGG, NG.LN)
reported more than 41,000 of its Massachusetts customers were
without power while NStar (NST) said 9,500 of its customers were
still in the dark.
In Maryland, about 83,000 were still without power, with about
61,000 of them in the Baltimore area, served by Constellation
Energy Group Inc.'s (CEG) Baltimore Gas and Electric.
In Rhode Island, about 54,500 were still without power, about
13% of the state's total customer base, with about 43,300 of them
in National Grid's service territory.
In hard-hit Vermont, 4,817 customers were still without power
Thursday, with most of them in Central Vermont Public Service
Corp.'s (CV) territory. The utility said the last few thousand
customers without service live in remote, hilly areas of the state
that can be hard to reach.
Central Vermont crews and line workers on loan from utilities in
other states "continue to find substantial damage," Central Vermont
spokesman Steve Costello said. For example, the utility has to
replace about a mile of power lines, including installing 21 new
utility poles, along a stretch of highway that was severely damaged
by flooding from Irene, he said.
-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468;
cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com
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