Progress Energy said Saturday evening that it is working to restore power to more than 175,000 customers while Duke Energy had another 16,000 without power as of 8 p.m. Both companies have customers in both Carolinas.
South Carolina Electric & Gas reported fewer than 400 outages in its service area in the central and southern parts of the state.
High winds and tornadoes knocked down trees and power lines across both states, but the bulk of the damage was in North Carolina.
Progress and Duke say they are continuing to assess damage to transmission lines and did not know how long it would take to restore power.
