Sandy Arrives: More Than a Million Without Power

Hurricane Sandy was reclassified as a post-tropical cyclone after making landfall in New Jersey Monday night and by midnight, the system was making its way over Philadelphia and farther into Pennsylvania. By sunrise, the center of the system was spinning in south-central PA, in and around Franklin County.

The storm is expected to turn north and move on into New York state and New England tomorrow. The remnants of Sandy still pack some strong wind gusts, but much of the torrential rain has ended. Light-to-moderate rain will continue for those in the path of the storm. Rainfall totals associated with Sandy were highest along the southern border with Maryland in eastern Pennsylvania where 6-8 inches of rain fell on Monday. A portion of central Pennsylvania southeast of Altoona also checked in with 6-8 inches according to the National Weather Service.

More than a million power customers were without service as the sun came up on Tuesday. PPL reported nearly 400,000 customers in the dark early this morning, while PECO was scrambling to restore power to hundreds of thousands in the five-county Philadelphia region. The First Energy companies (West Penn, Met-Ed, Penelec & Penn Power) also reported widespread outages which were most heavily concentrated in Berks and Northampton counties.