Atlantic City Electric customers on the barrier islands should see full power restoration by midnight Sunday night, officials from the electric company announced Thursday afternoon, Nov. 1.

The only exception is Long Beach Island, where restoration of power must be done in conjunction with the gas distribution company to assure public safety.

Full power restoration is expected on the mainland by Friday at midnight, with the exception of select Atlantic and Ocean county towns more severly impacted by Sandy, according to the electric company. These towns suffered more severe infrastructure damage, according to electric company officials.

To this point, the electric company has restored power to about two-thirds of the 220,000 customers who were without service, company officials said. According to the electric company, about 75,000 customers are still without power, including 43,000 on the barrier islands and 31,000 on the mainland.

“The damage to the system was unprecedented with 20 transmission lines, more than 40 distribution feeders, and seven distribution substations taken out of service,,” Atlantic City Electric Region President Vincent Maionesaid in a release.  “We are deploying our crews where they can have the maximum impact while working safely.  There are still some areas our crews cannot access or work safely.  But we are making tremendous progress even on the barrier islands, where we’ve already reduced outage by more than 30 percent.   

“We currently have close to 1,900 restoration personnel in the ACE service territory.  This includes over 300 mutual assistance crews arriving today and we expect more crews to arrive tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 2)."

Maione asked all customers to remain patient as safety issues need to be considered.

“Everyone feels tremendous urgency to make it possible for residents to access their homes," Maione said. "However, it’s imperative we all – electric crews, public work crews, gas crews – work safely and in a coordinated manner."