NEW YORK (AP) -- While power was restored Wednesday to a majority of the more than 200,000 electric customers blacked out when violent thunderstorms ripped through northern New Jersey late Tuesday, some might not see power restored until the end of the week.
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By 8 p.m., power had been restored to about 170,000 customers, according to Public Service Electric & Gas, the state's largest utility with 2.1 million electric customers in New Jersey.
PSE&G said about 60,000 customers were still without power in Bergen, Hudson and Essex counties. Initially, the utility reported about 150,000 customers without power on Tuesday night, but that number increased as customers alerted the utility to more outages on Wednesday.
Some may not have power for several days because of damage to transmission equipment, PSE&G spokeswoman Patty Johnson said.
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PSE&G said crews from all over the state have been dispatched to the affected counties to repair downed lines and damaged equipment. Crews from other utilities in Pennsylvania were expected to arrive Thursday.
JCP&L reported about 1,700 customers didn't have electricity in parts of Sussex, Passaic, Morris and Somerset counties. At its peak, about 21,000 were without power. JCP&L expected to have everyone restored by late Wednesday evening. The Long Island Power Authority reported nearly 49,000 customers in the Rockaways, Hempstead, and North Hempstead were without power for nearly an hour Wednesday afternoon. LIPA says the blackout started at 1:20 p.m. and was traced to a substation in Valley Stream.
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Con Ed reported 3,407 customers without power, mostly in Westchester. Connecticut Light and Power said it has 13,002 outages.
The brunt of the damage, however, was in the Garden State State.
The storm also disrupted rail service for some morning commuters and led to school closings in several towns.
No injuries were reported, but a number of cars were damaged by falling trees, including in Nutley, where the storm's effects varied wildly from block to block.
Classes at schools in Nutley have been canceled for the rest of the week.
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Less than 200 yards from the town's main intersection, Angie Kilicaslin and daughter Aysel had to step over downed wires to get from their front door to the sidewalk, where their Mercedes lay crushed under a massive tree branch.
Aysel Kilicaslin had just stepped out of the shower Tuesday night when the storm hit, knocking trees and debris around the neighborhood for nearly 30 minutes.
``It was very scary. I hid under the covers,'' she said.
Emergency crews set up flares and closed the street soon after the storm, according to Angie Kilicaslin, but by noon Wednesday no cleanup crews had begun to untangle the mess of wires in front of her door.
``They said we'll be without power for a couple of days,'' she said. ``I'm probably going to have to go stay at my sister's.''
Two blocks away, however, the Nutley Diner was left unscathed by the storm and was doing a brisk lunchtime business Wednesday.
In neighboring Belleville, police and utility crews blocked off a long stretch of Union Avenue where one massive tree had split in half and fallen into the street, dragging electrical wires with it. NJ Transit buses were forced to detour through quiet residential streets.
``I hope we get power back by tonight. If not, it's going to be bad,'' said Connie Casarrubea, who lives around the corner and said her husband uses a respirator that can run on batteries _ but not indefinitely.
Casarrubea said she learned a valuable lesson from the last power outage to hit the neighborhood and doesn't stock more than a week or two of food during the summer.
``What's the point? It'll just go bad,'' she said.
Nearly half the outages were in Essex County, said county Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., who declared a state of emergency there Tuesday night.
``It's a very, very dangerous situation, and it's still going on,'' DiVincenzo said, citing two minor house fires and numerous roads that had to be cleared of downed trees.
The declaration allows the county to seek a disaster declaration from the state. If then accepted by federal authorities, residents, business and governments can seek grants or low-interest loans to cover expenses from the storm.
DiVincenzo said he had no immediate figures on the cost, but said public works crews had been working steadily since Tuesday night, while state and local police directed traffic at numerous intersections where signals were dark.
NJ Transit suspended morning train service on the Montclair-Boonton line, but resumed operations about 1 p.m. and a normal evening commute was expected.
NJ Transit also reported significant delays of up to two hours on the Morris & Essex lines because of damage from the powerful storms, but those were expected to ease during the afternoon.
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