(Harrisburg) -- The state Public Utility Company reports some 385,400 Pennsylvania homes are without electricity. Power companies say getting everybody back on the grid again could take all week. Utilities are updating their websites with power outage maps, and eastern Pennsylvania is covered with outage dots. Scott Surgeoner is spokesman for First Energy, which owns Met Ed and Penelec. He says storm damage crews have their work cut out for them. "Replace probably more than 200 poles, more than 400 spans of wire that have come down," he says. "There are places in our area, our territory where we have not been able to assess the damage yet due to down trees across the road and or flooding." In the northeast, Met-Ed has taken to the skies to assess the areas around Easton and Stroudsburg by helicopter, because the roads are blocked due to flooding and felled trees. First Energy says it doesn’t know when it will be able to restore power for its customers. PPL is saying three to five days for its hardest hit areas – around Lehigh Valley, Lancaster, and Harrisburg. In the midstate, some 38,000 people were without power, as of 4:00 p.m. Monday. Five people have been killed in incidents related to Hurricane Irene, including one in the midstate.










