UPDATE: Nearly 247,000 Without Power in Ocean and Monmouth

Update, 6 p.m.: Outages have reached 126,739 in Ocean County and 120,000 in Monmouth County.

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There are nearly 24,000 reported power outages in Monmouth and Ocean counties as of early Monday afternoon, according to a Jersey Central Power & Light map.

As of early Monday afternoon, there were 23,559 outages reported in Monmouth and Ocean. However, there was no way to immediately learn if some without power have not reported it yet because they may have no means of communication without electricity.

But according to the information available, the highest number of outages in one town in the two counties was Middletown, with 6,869.

Another town with a high number of reported outages was Berkeley in southern Ocean County with 1,848.

Emergency management officials have said during the past few days that they expect Sandy to cause widespread power outages. JCP&L officials have said that some areas may have no power for 7 to 10 days, but that they will be using improved technology, communications, equipment and extra manpower to try to rectify the outages as best they can.

To check the number of power outages in your town, region or county, see the JCP&L map.