U.S. Mid-Atlantic storm leaves 300,000 without power

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A snow and ice storm ravaging the U.S. Mid-Atlantic states Wednesday knocked out power to more than 300,000 customers from Virginia to New York, local electric companies reported.

As utilities in the Mid-Atlantic states restored power as the storm moved into the Northeast, power companies in New York and New England prepared for outages.

The storm hit Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s Baltimore Gas and Electric subsidiary hardest, leaving more than 90,000 customers without power.

Pedestrians make their way through Times Square during a snow storm in New York, February 14, 2007. A snow and ice storm ravaging the U.S. Mid-Atlantic states Wednesday knocked out power to more than 300,000 customers from Virginia to New York, local electric companies reported. (REUTERS/Keith Bedford)

In Virginia, Dominion Resources Inc.'s Dominion Virginia subsidiary reported it restored power to all but 27,000 customers by Wednesday afternoon, down from about 65,000 at the height of the storm.

Pepco Holdings Inc.'s subsidiaries in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington restored service to thousands of customers Wednesday morning but still had about 52,000 customers powerless.

A spokesman for Pepco Holding's Pepco subsidiary in Washington said the company expected to restore service to most customers later Wednesday.

In New Jersey, FirstEnergy Corp.'s Jersey Central Power and Light subsidiary reported 45,000 customers were without service in the central part of the state.

In the Midwest, a couple of utilities in the Ohio Valley continued to clean up the last outages from when the storm passed through the region earlier in the week.

Duke Energy Corp. still had about 50,000 customers to restore in Ohio, while American Electric Power Co. Inc.'s Ohio and West Virginia subsidiaries were working on the last 20,000 outages.