UPDATE: Power Outages in Monmouth County

Power outage numbers continued to drop slightly across the state Thursday. According to one utility company, though, residents shouldn't expect power back any time soon from a storm it is comparing to Hurricane Katrina.

JCP&L reported in a release on Wednesday that the majority of customers will be restored within the next seven days. However, it could take up to two weeks for customers in the hardest-hit areas to regain power, the company said.

JCP&L reported about 822,000 of its nearly 1.1 million customers remained in the dark as of about 2:45 p.m. on Thursday, according to its outage map. The number includes 233,899 in Monmouth, down from the 264,061 who were without power late Wednesday night.

“The damage from Hurricane Sandy far exceeds what we saw from Hurricane Irene or the October 2011 snowstorm,” said Don Lynch, president of JCP&L, in a release.  “While we were better prepared for Hurricane Sandy, the damage rivals that experienced during Hurricane Katrina, one of our nation’s most devastating and expensive hurricanes. In preparing for Hurricane Sandy, we positioned 1,600 line crews and 1,200 forestry professionals prior to the storm even making landfall.”

At the peak, more than 1 million of JCP&L’s 1.1 million customers were without power.