美国数百万人断电民众受困于黑暗和寒冷

As overnight temperatures fell to the 40s, power crews in more than a dozen states navigated a tangle of fallen trees, downed power lines and dangerous floodwaters in the painstaking, house-by-house work of reconnecting millions of customers left in the dark by Sandy.

夜间气温已经下降到4摄氏度左右，在10多个州内，电力工作人员穿越地面上横着的大树、七零八落的电线以及危险的积水，挨家挨户地为数百万因“桑迪(Sandy)而断电的人们接续电路。

Power was restored by late Thursday to about half of 10 million households and businesses that lost electricity during the storm, according to the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group that represents investor-owned utilities. But millions more remained cut off from power needed to operate furnaces, heaters, refrigerators and lights.

据行业组织爱迪生电气协会(Edison Electric Institute)说，周四晚间，在风暴中失去电力供应的1,000万家庭和企业中，已经有大约一半恢复供电。爱迪生电气协会代表的是由投资者拥有的公用设施。但是仍有数百万人没有恢复供电，他们无法使用炉子、暖气、冰箱和电灯。

'It's freezing like an ice box,' said Lydia Crespo, who was using a gas stove to heat her home in Staten Island, N.Y., still without power. 'No hot water, no light. All you smell is the gas, the oil, the mold.'

克雷斯波(Lydia Crespo)说，家里冷得像个冰窖。她正在位于纽约斯坦顿岛(Staten Island)的家中用一个煤气炉取暖，她家仍然断电。她说，没有热水，没有照明，只能闻到煤气、汽油和发霉的味道。

The death toll attributed to Sandy reached 90, authorities said Thursday. Transit bottlenecks began to ease in New York City with the reopening of some subways, but in New Jersey and elsewhere lines stretched long from gas stations lucky enough to have both electricity and gasoline. Amtrak said it would resume southbound train service from Pennsylvania Station on Thursday evening, and limited service to Boston on Friday. But NJTransit trains remained largely out of service.

政府部门周四说，因“桑迪死亡的人数已经上升到90人。随着一些地铁线路重新开放，纽约市阻塞的交通已经开始有所缓解，但在新泽西州和其他地区的那些电力和汽油都没有中断的幸运的加油站，人们排起了长长的队伍。美铁公司(Amtrak)说，将于周四晚间恢复从宾夕法尼亚车站向南的列车，周五恢复通往波士顿的部分线路。但是新泽西州捷运局(NJTransit)的火车大部分仍然停运。

U.S. Air Force cargo planes were flying utility crews and 636 tons of equipment, including electric company bucket trucks, to speed power restoration.

为了加速电力恢复，美国空军的货机一直在运送公用事业工作人员，并运送了636吨的设备，包括电力公司的起重机车。

Long-standing mutual-aid pacts, activated days before Sandy hit, drew an emergency team of more than 64,000 workers from 82 utility companies across the U.S., including a crew from San Diego Gas & Electric that arrived Thursday.

根据桑迪来袭几天之前启动的长期互助协议，来自全美82家公用事业公司的超过6.4万工人组成了紧急队伍，其中包括周四抵达的来自圣迭戈煤气电力公司(San Diego Gas & Electric)的一组工作人员。

'It's epic,' said Brian Wolff, senior vice president of Edison Electric. 'I think it's the biggest mobilization we've seen.'

爱迪生电气协会的高级副总裁沃尔夫(Brian Wolff)说，这是一次惊人之举，我想这是我们见过的最大规模的动员。

Their task is Herculean: 1.7 million customers were without electricity in New Jersey; 1.5 million in New York; 500,000 in Pennsylvania; 348,000 in Connecticut; 139,000 in West Virginia; 40,000 in Maryland; and 21,000 in Rhode Island.

工人们的任务非常艰巨：新泽西州170万人断电；纽约州150万；宾夕法尼亚州50万；康涅狄格州34.8万；西弗吉尼亚州13.9万；马里兰州4万；罗得岛州2.1万。

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said neighborhoods served by overhead lines may not be repaired until the end of next week. 'We have volunteer crews from across the country,' Mr. Bloomberg said. 'But it's just an enormous job, and you have to go up in a bucket and fix each one as you get to it.'

纽约市长布隆伯格(Michael Bloomberg)说，依靠架空线供电的社区可能得等到下周末才能修复供电。布隆伯格说，我们拥有来自全国的志愿者队伍，但这是一个工作量巨大的工作，工人们需要站在起重机车上在高空的电线杆上一个一个修理。

Utility crews were slowed by downed trees blocking roads and homes with standing water that made them too dangerous to reconnect to the grid.

因为倒下的大树阻挡了道路，以及一些家庭的积水使连接电路的工作非常危险，抢修的进度受到了影响。

'We've got to go block by block, house by house,' said Ralph Izzo, chairman of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., a New Jersey utility.

新泽西州的公共服务企业集团(Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.)董事长伊佐(Ralph Izzo)说，我们得一个街区接着一个街区挨家挨户地工作。

Workers at the utility, which serves a wide swath of the state, used toothbrushes to scrub the mud from flooded equipment at switching stations, he said, trying to get them working for 780,000 customers without power. Workers used rags to dry the gear by hand.

这家公用事业公司负责新泽西州大片区域的供电。伊佐说，在变电所，该公司的工人用牙刷清除洪水留在设备上的泥沙，好让这些设备能够正常工作，从而为78万断电用户供电。工人们还需要亲手用抹布把设备擦干。