Sandy knocks out power to more than 2 million (by Jim Jelter)

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- More than 2 million homes and businesses from North Carolina to New England were without electricity after Hurricane Sandy, packing 90 mile-per-hour winds, slammed into the region Monday evening. New York City, New Jersey, and Long Island were among the hardest hit, with extensive outages also reported by utilities in Philadelphia and Connecticut. Consolidated Edison (ed) , New York City's main power provider, said 69,000 customers were in the dark and that it was shutting main circuits to lower Manhattan to protect electrical equipment from floodwaters. Outages on Long Island topped 589,000, according to Long Island Power Authority, while New Jersey's main utilities estimated electricity was out at at least 620,000 homes and businesses. Utility officials said it would likely take days to restore power to the more remote parts of their service territories.