Electric Power Outages Spread North in Irene's Wake

As Hurricane Irene moves at 13 miles per hour north north east along the eastern seaboard of the Unites States massive power outages are following in its wake. Here's how North Carolina looks at 1:30 PM EDT:

North Carolina Power Outage Map at 13:00 on Saturday August 27th 2011

According to Progress Energy's website Pitt County now has 100.5 % power outage (sic), Beaufort County has 100 %, and the rather more populous Carteret County is up to 99.77 % without mains electricity.

Further north in Virginia Dominion Electric's interactive power outage map now displays a large number of brightly coloured spots:

Virginia Power Outage Map at 14:00 on Saturday August 27th 2011

However that doesn't make it easy to get an overview of what's happening across the state. Dominion also provide a summary table which currently reveals that across their patch in Virginia and North Carolina:

Customers Assigned: 2,442,740 Customers Out: 369,357

which I make just over 15%.

Dominion haven't issued any press releases as yet, but they have released some videos. This one contains advice on how to get your power back safely if you're fortunate enough to have a generator of your own:

However David Botkins, Dominion's Director of Media Relations, also says in the video that:

We're not going to put our crews in harm's way when the storm is at its absolute peak. That would be reckless and it would be irresponsible, and we take our public safety and the safety of our employees very seriously, so were just not going to do that. But we are going to be out there in the field as soon as the storm passes and we're going to be assessing for damage and we're going to be going about the business of the restoration of power.

I for one will be following their progress in that mission very closely.