It's all hands on deck for utility companies in our area as Irene's lashing winds blow into our region.
Pepco is expecting widespread outages, it's just a matter of when and for how long.
The power company has brought in hundreds of out-of-state crews to try to get the lights back on as soon as possible.
Pepco president Tom Graham says customers should be ready for power outages.
"The first thing that you have to consider is this is a hurricane," Graham said. "It will be a multi-day outage, and there will be considerable damage to our system.
Pepco are asked customers to be prepared with more than 600,000 robocalls ahead of the storm.
Dominion Virginia and B.G.E. have also called in crews from out-of-state to help restore power.
B.G.E. expects as many as 500,000 outages.
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In our viewing area, here's an update on current outages:
5:20pm outages:
DOMINION: 11398 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED IN NORTHERN VA
PEPCO: 8778 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED
BGE: 12545 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED
SMECO: 6578 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED
NOVEC: 3 CUSTOMERS AFFECTED
ALLEGHANY: 154 IN MARYLAND AND WEST VA
DELMARVA: 12259CUSTOMERS AFFECTED (not sure how many viewers live in this area)
TOTAL: 51715 (including all of Delmarva)
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