More Mid-Atlantic residents were a little more comfortable Thursday as power companies hooked them back up with lights and air conditioning over the Fourth of July holiday.

The number without power was diminishing Thursday though not quickly enough for those still in the sweltering dark. More than 500,000 customers were still out with many of the outages — nearly 230,000 — in West Virginia.

Pepco got some of the harshest criticism. As of Thursday morning, the utility said it had restored power to more than 90 percent of its customers in the nation’s capital and Maryland suburbs.