Delaware crews continue to restore power in the wake of Sandy

Just days after Sandy made landfall and ripped through the Delaware region, utility crews are still working to restore power to hundreds of homes where neighborhoods experienced severe flooding. In Delaware, more than 45,000 residents were without electricity at the peak of the power outage.

Nearly 500 homes are without power in lower Delaware, according to Delaware Electric Cooperative.  However, as of late Wednesday afternoon officials announced that crews will remain on duty trying to restore power for families.  Post storm damage includes hundreds of  destroyed transformers and electric meters because of high waters in various Sussex County neighborhoods like Swann Keys and Mariner’s Cove near Fenwick.  In fact, in Linemen, there were reports of a boat sitting on top of a transformer.

According to DEC, replacing damaged tranformers can possibly take several days due to the extensive weather conditions. It didn’t help that high waters even prevented crews from entering devasted areas until Wednesday morning. 

In the meantime, while crews make their way through flooding in coastal communities, power has been restored to those areas not affected by high water. 

As for Delmarva Power, crews have restored electric service to the majority of their customers that includes Maryland residents. “With the storm behind us, we expect to make great progress in restoring electric service to our customers in Delaware and Maryland,” said Gary Stockbridge, Region President, Delmarva Power. “I want to thank our customers for their patience while we work to restore power to every customer affected by the storm.”

Delmarva crews are making progress and hope to wrap up restoration efforts by the end of the week.