TRENTON, N.J. » Nearly 434,000 utility customers in New Jersey are without electricity as Hurricane Sandy pummels the state with rain and strong winds.

Jersey Central Power & Light is reporting 255,000 customers without service, mostly in Ocean and Monmouth counties.

Atlantic City Electric has 85,000 outages, centered mainly in Atlantic County, while Public Service Electric & Gas says 93,500 customers are without power.

The utilities say it may take until Wednesday before their crews can make a full assessment of the damage.

Nearly 2 million customers lost power when Tropical Storm Irene hit the state last year.