Power Outage, Weather | featured news

About 3.5 million customers were without power in the eastern United States on Saturday amid a record heat wave after deadly thunderstorms knocked down trees and power lines from Indiana to New Jersey.

An impressive solar flare is heading toward Earth and could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights....

Violent winds that wreaked havoc in Western states eased Friday but hundreds of thousands of people remained without power and crews struggled to clean up smashed trees, toppled power lines and debris-strewn roadways....

Some of the worst winds in years blasted the West overnight, knocking down trees and power lines in California and toppling trucks and forcing some schools to close as gusts reached 102 mph in Utah.

A storm hits Connecticut and causes hundreds of thousands to lose power. Utility companies take a week or longer to restore it. Public outrage leads to state investigations. Officials order service improvements.

Several hundred thousand Connecticut residents were still without power following last weekend's snow storm, but one of them may be holding a Powerball ticket worth $245 million.

Parts of New England were expected to hit the low 50s Tuesday, which could be considered balmy to some who braved the freak October snowstorm that dropped more than 2 feet of snow in some places over the weekend.

At least 2.3 million people across the Northeast found themselves without electricity after an unusual autumn storm dumped record amounts of snow. More than 2.3 million customers from Pennsylvania through New England had no electricity, according to reports, as the region was lashed by surprisingly high winds and snowdrifts. In Manhattan, tree branches snapped under the weight of wet snow, piling up along 5th Avenue and toppling across and obstructing the walkways of Central Park.

Hurricane Irene knocked out power to nearly 1 million customers in Virginia; it was being restored in some areas today. Dominion Virginia Power said on its website early Sunday that more than 973,000 of its more than 2.4 million customers were without power Sunday morning.

From North Carolina to Pennsylvania, Hurricane Irene appeared to have fallen short of the doomsday predictions. But with rivers still rising, and roads impassable because of high water and fallen trees, it could be days before the full extent of the damage is known. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses along the coast lost power, and at least 14 deaths were blamed on the storm.