Dive Summary:

• Hurricane Sandy may pose a severe threat to the Washington, D.C., and New York City areas early next week, with a senior meteorologiest at AccuWeather calling it a potential $1 billion storm.
• FirstEnergy Corp. and Exelon Corp. are both taking Sandy seriously, preparing for possible power failures and outages.
• Sandy has been producing 105-mile-per-hour winds moving north toward the Bahamas, and it is expected to hit the mid-Atlantic states and northern coastline of the U.S. as soon as Oct. 28.

From the article:

"... Utilities along the East Coast monitored the storm.

FirstEnergy Corp. (FE)’s Jersey Central Power & Light, which delivers power to 1.1 million New Jersey homes and businesses, placed employees on alert, the utility said in an Oct. 24 statement.

Exelon Corp. (EXC)’s Baltimore Gas & Electric urged its 1.2 million power customers in central Maryland to prepare for power failures and flooding.“We’re taking this extremely seriously,” Robert Gould, a utility spokesman, said today in an interview. ..."