First responders from our region are headed for the New Jersey shore to help in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, while back home crews are working on getting everyone's electricity back online.

At least 55 deaths have been attributed to the storm, including seven in Pennsylvania.

As the recovery effort gets under way, crews from the region will be involved. An organization has given some members of local volunteer fire departments and ambulance services an opportunity to travel to the hardest hit areas and help those in need.

The Southern Alleghenies EMS asked Cambria County to participate in providing aid to storm victims in New Jersey, and those local crew members will be part of an emergency response team.

Cambria County President Commissioner Doug Lengenfelder said it's important for people to help our neighbors.

"So not only has Cambria County dealt with Sandy very well these last couple of days, but we've been able to help people in the region," said Lengenfelder said.

In addition to Cambria County emergency crews, ambulance services and fire departments from Blair County will travel to New Jersey to assist.


Centre Lifelink will also be part of the strike team by sending four EMTs and paramedics to Ocean City, N.J. They left on Tuesday and nearly 35 ambulances form Pennsylvania have been deployed to assist with 911 calls and to aid in search and rescue efforts.


Several counties in the WJAC-TV viewing area were hit hard by Sandy on Tuesday, and thousands were affected by flooding, snow and high winds. Statewide it's estimated that 850,000 people still don't have electricity


But local emergency crews are getting people back online. As of noon Wednesday, there were only about five homes without power in Cambria County as opposed to more than 1,000 customers without power on Tuesday.


Penelec reported that Blair County had just more than 2,900 customers with outages, about 1,500 in Bedford County, 260 in Clearfield County and about 140 in Somerset. Cambria, Centre and Jefferson counties all had 50 or fewer.