FirstEnergy using Twitter to update power outages due to Hurricane Sandy

AKRON, Ohio - FirstEnergy has been using Twitter to keep customers informed on the process of restoring power to more than 250,000 people in northeast Ohio.

"We're responding as best we can given the high volumes we're experiencing," said Tricia Ingraham, a spokesperson for FirstEnergy.

Ingraham said more than 300 tweets were posted leading up to and during the storm.

The utility company responded to many customers who either complimented or complained about repair times.

"We're explaining the actions that we take to help restore an outage. We're providing safety measures and we're answering customers' concerns. We're also telling them how to report an outage. Since Twitter is not tied into our internal systems, you can't actually report an outage through Twitter, but we are providing links to report it through our website," Ingraham said.

FirstEnergy has estimated that some residents may not have power restored for a couple of days, or until this weekend due to the high number of outages.

By 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, an estimated 200,000 outages were still reported on the company's website.

Ingraham said people should call 1-888-544-4877 (1-888-LIGHTSS) to report an outage.

FirstEnergy uses the Twitter handles @illuminatingco and @Ohioedison .