Update 10:55 a.m.: Well this is a huge bummer. It looks like the Con Ed spokesman got our hopes up and despite what he told Bloomberg, Con Ed's twitter account is giving a less optimistic estimate on the state of power in lower Manhattan. 

@hirschb Two specific networks on the very tip of lower Manhattan may come back today, still on target for the rest of Manhattan by Sat...

— Con Edison (@ConEdison) November 2, 2012

The Twitter account didn't give any more details, just saying it would announce the boundaries once it had finished the repairs. The rest of SoPo—the new neighborhood South of Power, haven't you heard of it?—will have to wait until tomorrow, it seems. 

Original Post: Now with an earlier than expected estimate, ConEd says power should be back on in all of Manhattan by the end of today, spokesman Robert McGee told Bloomberg News. Yesterday, the utility told residents in many Manhattan neighborhoods their power would be on by Saturday at 11 p.m., as The Atlantic Wire's Alex Abad Santos notes yesterday. But the company sounds confident about the pace of repairs since then. "We’ve made some significant progress," McGee said in an interview today with Bloomberg's Michael McKee. "We do hope to get all of Manhattan back by the end of the day today." While that's not a definitive "this is happening," that glimmer will get people's hopes up. We imagine ConEd wouldn't even suggest something as exciting as this if it didn't mean it. 

As of this morning, 570,000 customers were still without electricity in the New York City and Westchester, reports Reuters. (An improvement from the 650,000 number quoted last night.) 226,000 of those people are in Manhattan. And we can imagine those 226,000 can't wait to get their power back—minus the whole cleaning out the smelly fridge part. As for the rest of those hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers without power, Con Ed didn't have any good news updates for them. 

Update: Though maybe not all Manhattanites shouldn't get too excited. The Con Ed Twitter account still says Grammercy and Chelsea can expect power at 11 p.m on Saturday. Maybe it's just a miscommunication? But maybe not. If you live in those areas and are trying to mentally prepare, we suggest expecting power tomorrow night at the earliest. If it comes back earlier, well, then that's just gravy.

@anyaziourova @retoinrjulia Chelsea is included in the networks that should be restored by Sat evening #ConEdison

— Con Edison (@ConEdison) November 2, 2012

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