New York power company Consolidated Edison Inc. said Thursday that an estimated 659,400 homes and businesses are still without power. This is three days after hybrid storm Sandy slammed into the East Coast late Sunday.

Sandy left more than 8.48 million customers without electricity in 21 states from North Carolina to Maine and as far west as Illinois.

Con Edison confirmed in a report that it has restored power to more than 225,000 customers since Sandy left its mark. The company referred to the storm as the worst natural disaster to strike its service area.

The power company said it expects to make progress restoring electricity over the next two days with help from additional crews from around the country arriving daily from as far away as California. This is consistent with the company's earlier expectations.

The company said on Wednesday that customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn served by underground equipment should have their power back within three days. Con Edison also said it would take at least a week to restore all of those in areas served by overhead power lines.

When the numbers came in, Con Edison said about 227,000 customers were still without power in Manhattan, 103,000 in Queens, 59,000 in Brooklyn, 83,000 in Staten Island, 36,000 in the Bronx and 166,000 in Westchester as of 4:30 a.m. EST Thursday.

At 8:45 a.m., that total number of clients without power decreased to 659,400.

Late Wednesday, Con Edison said it restored power to customers who got their power from underground electrical networks in Manhattan and Brooklyn that were shut down Monday night as the flood waters from the storm were surging.

CNN reported mid-Thursday that 4.8 million people are still without power.

The electrical networks serve about 2,000 customers in lower Manhattan and 28,200 in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn.