Hundreds of thousands without power as Sandy nears land

A worker clears a tree dropped by the high winds prior to landfall of Hurricane Sandy in Shrewsbury, Mass., Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. Hurricane Sandy continued on its path Monday, as the storm forced the shutdown of mass transit, schools and financial markets, sending coastal residents fleeing, and threatening a dangerous mix of high winds and soaking rain. AP Photo/Charles Krupa

WASHINGTON—Hundreds of thousands of people were without power as Hurricane Sandy neared landfall Monday, lashing the US east coast with heavy winds and flooding, government figures showed.

The US Department of Energy reported that around 316,500 power company customers were cut off at 2:00 pm (1800 GMT), one-third of them in New York and another 25 percent in New Jersey.

Two hours later, television reports said the number had rocketed to between 500,000 and 750,000, the furious winds of the storm knocking down trees, ripping down power lines and rains swamping other infrastructure.

Power companies said they had mobilized more than 10,000 workers to remove fallen trees and restore lines, though it was not clear how much work could be done as the storm continued to intensify Monday afternoon.

The outages could get worse: PSEG Nuclear, which operates the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear power plants in New Jersey, supplying about 49 percent of the state’s electricity, said it was keeping an eye on conditions to see whether they would have to shut down power production.

Joe Delmar, a spokesman for the utility, said the plants were designed to withstand a category four hurricane, but they would be shut down if winds and adjacent river waters topped preset thresholds.

The Department of Energy also said that two oil refineries in the storm’s path had shut down and four others had reduced operations.

Ports and terminals for oil and other cargoes had been mostly shut down along the New Jersey coast as the storm neared.