The number of homes and businesses without power on Wednesday morning, after Hurricane Matthew pummeled the US Southeast's Atlantic coast during the weekend, was down to 263,000, according to electric companies.
That compared with 532,000 at midday on Tuesday and a high of around 2.2 million on Sunday morning when the storm was still battering the North and South Carolina coasts.
Matthew, the fiercest Atlantic storm since 2007, lashed the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia and Virginia with heavy rain and wind after killing about 1,000 people in Haiti as it swept north through the Caribbean. At least 30 people were killed in the United States.
The hardest hit utility was Duke Energy Corp in North and South Carolina, which reported more than 1.3 million customers affected by the storm. Duke has restored service to over 1.2 million homes and businesses.
Duke has said it could take all week to restore power to customers in the hardest hit areas.