WASHINGTON (AP) — It could be a week before power is restored in the Washington region.

Courtney Nogas, a spokeswoman for the power company Pepco, says restoration efforts in the Mid-Atlantic region are expected to take about a week. The company has some 788,000 customers in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Friday night’s storms left a total of 443,000 Pepco customers in the region without power.

Nogas said Friday night’s storms caused about twice as many outages as that of Hurricane Irene last year. The number of outages and damage to infrastructure nearly matches that of Hurricane Isabel in 2003, she said.

Nogas said the company had been prepared, but no amount of preparation can significantly speed up restoration efforts.

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