Met-Ed expects to have all those who lost power from Superstorm Sandy back by today, a spokesman said.
With wind gusts predicted to reach as high as 60 mph by Wednesday afternoon in Hunterdon County as a Nor'eastern works its way up the East Coast, there were still 17,478 JCP&L customers in the dark as of the morning in the county.
That's an improvement of about 7,000 customers in the past 24 hours, according to power company statistics. Readington Township still had 2,612 customers out, while Raritan Township still had 1,686 out, more than a week after Superstorm Sandy hit.
Warren County still had 11,200 customers out as of this morning, down from 15,998 a day ago. Mansfield Township saw an improvement from 2,011 to 1,261 since Monday morning.
JCP&L workers last week repair lines to a sub-station on Industrial Avenue in Alpha to restore power in parts of Pohatcong Township and Alpha. A power company spokesman said the "backbone" of the system had to repaired first.
Met-Ed is in the part of the restoration effort where what damage is left is significant and the amount of work to resolve it only brings a few customers back on line, spokesman Scott Surgeoner said this morning.
He gave the example of Riegelsville and Tinicum Township in Bucks County. To restore power to fewer than 1,000 customers, Met-Ed had to replace more than 50 downed power poles. Riegelsville had six customers still out this morning.
Surgeoner called it "slow, tedious work," but so far it has been completed without injury to any workers, which he called "a tribute" to employees and contractors in the field and their supervisors.
The company is hoping to have all its customers throughout the region back on today, Sugeoner said. That doesn't mean, however, that all those crews will go to New Jersey to assist in that restoration effort, he said.
With another storm coming and the unpredictable nature of weather forecasting, Met-Ed is holding on to its crews and contractors to make sure there is no immediate need on Wednesday or Thursday, he said.
While the company is looking at a "demobilization" plan, it is not ready to implement it, he said.
Find outages in your area:
Check here for a map of outages in Northampton and Bucks counties from Met-Ed.
Check here for a listing of outages in Lehigh and Northampton counties from PPL.
Check here for a map of New Jersey outages from JCP&L.