MetEd Declares Power Restoration Complete

By Christina Georgiou

Utility company MetEd declared Tuesday that their restoration of power to those whose electricity was knocked out by Hurricane Sandy is now complete, but some in Easton and the greater Easton area are still sitting in the dark.

"Met-Ed has restored service to nearly all of its more than 270,000 customers affected by the storm," read a Tuesday afternoon press release detailing the company's efforts over the past week.

While that is a vast improvement over the original number of local customers left without power, for those that remain without, it's likely to be little comfort on a night where temperatures are predicted to fall below freezing after more than a week with no electricity.

At about 6 p.m. on Tuesday evening, eight days after the superstorm struck, there were still 224 locations in the City of Easton without service, mostly in College Hill. In Palmer Township, the number without power sat at 241.

Other municipalities were faring better and showing signs that their power outages may actually be ended for all within 24 hours, with 20 in Wilson Borough, 17 locations in Williams and 22 Forks Townships without service.

The company has said the remainder of those without power should be restored by the end of Wednesday, Nov. 7.

"In many respects, Sandy was a much more damaging storm than Irene or the 2011 October snowstorm. As an example, during this past week our crews replaced more than twice as many poles, cross arms, and transformers as we did following Irene. Sandy was a historic storm for Met-Ed and its customers," said Mike Doran, Met-Ed regional president, via the media release.

Real-time information provided by MetEd showed that power was back on for all in West Easton and Glendon boroughs.

"Our crews worked as quickly and safely as possible through our restoration plan to return service to our customers," Doran said."Most importantly, we completed that work safely. I can't thank our customers enough for their patience as we worked to recover from this historic storm; we are well aware of the inconvenience a power outage causes."

Those still without power should call 1-888-544-4877 to make sure the company is aware their location is still dark.

Wednesday update: By early afternoon, all townships were mostly restored to service, with only sporadic outages in the low double digits. In the City of Easton, 104 customer locations were without power.

Updated at 2:03 p.m. on Wednesday, November 7.