Some Delmarva Power customers may be out of service until mid-week or later

Delmarva Power says the most complicated part of restoring power to customers affected by Hurricane Irene may be yet to come. 

As of midday Monday, more than 10,000 customers in Delaware still did not have electricity, according to Delmarva Power Region President Gary Stockbridge.

Stockbridge says tens of thousands of outages were reported to Delmarva since the start of the storm on Saturday.  Crews were able to restore large groups of customers over the weekend.  Now, more individualized responses are often needed.  Stockbridge says many of the remaining customers being restored are in areas that are harder to access or have been impacted by flooding.

“Although we had extensive outages, we didn’t see the wholesale kind of damage that we were concerned about that this type of a storm can produce,” Stockbridge said.  Many of the disruptions have been caused by trees, large branches or individual poles coming down.

Stockbridge said Delmarva Power hopes to have its affected customers in the Delaware Bay region back in service no later than the end of the day Tuesday.  In New Castle County, Stockbridge said some customers may be out of service until later Wednesday, and maybe some may not have electricity until early Thursday.

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The Red Cross of Delmarva opened 27 shelters in a 14-county region that provided meals and a place to stay for an estimated 8,000 people who had to be evacuated.  Eight of the shelters were in Delaware, and 19 in Maryland and the Virginia Eastern Shore.

Anyone wishing to make a donation to local relief efforts may contribute online at redcross.org, by texting to 90999, or calling 1-800-REDCROSS.