Local

Number of those without power dropping in NC

RALEIGH, N.C. — (AP) Thousands of people remain without electricity in North Carolina after a storm dumped snow, sleet and ice across most of the state, although the number has dropped.

Spokeswoman Julia Jarema of the state emergency operations center says nearly 48,000 people were without power Friday. That's compared with 133,000 outages reported Thursday afternoon.

About 41,000 of the outages Friday are in the eastern part of the state, which got mostly ice and not snow.

Duke Energy reported more than 36,000 without service in the area previously served by Progress Energy. More than 13,000 were without service in the Wilmington area. Duke reported only about 400 customers without power in the western part of the state.

Dominion Power reported no significant problems in the northeastern part of North Carolina.