RICHMOND, Va. — Dominion Power says more than 155,000 customers in Virginia and parts of North Carolina are still without electricity in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Ida.

Most of the outages are in southeast Virginia, where 146,545 customers didn’t have electricity as of 6 a.m. today.

Relentless rain drenched much of the Atlantic seaboard Thursday, pelting communities from North Carolina northward with gusty winds and heavy rains, inundating streets and stranding drivers.

According to the National Weather Service, light rain continued to fall across southeast Virginia early this morning.

Thursday was the second straight day eastern North Carolina was drenched by heavy rains and whipped by high winds which were strong throughout the state.

Parts of coastal North Carolina were drenched with up to 10 inches of rain and gusts up to 35 mph. Inland, 5 inches of rain fell in Sampson and Columbus, and 4 inches in Robeson County.

A portion of N.C. 12, the two-lane highway on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, was closed temporarily on Hatteras Island because of ocean overwash, and officials said it would be closed intermittently.

In addition, state officials said stormy weather led the N.C. Ferry Division to suspend its Cherry Branch-Minnesott Beach and Currituck routes.

Thousands of residents lost electrical service. Duke Energy reported more than 11,000 customers lost service in the Charlotte area, though much of the service had been restored by late Thursday morning.

Progress Energy reported only scattered outages in the eastern part of the state.

Some roads were closed across the state by flooding and downed trees. Schools in several districts in the Wilmington area opened later than usual.

A drizzle and 17-mph winds are expected today in most parts of North Carolina, with the weekend warming up to 70 degrees and mostly sunny.

The storm has been blamed for five deaths across three states. The Coast Guard halted the search for three missing New Jersey fishermen whose boat sank in rough seas caused by Ida on Wednesday night.

In North Carolina, a man standing in his yard was killed when a pine tree was snapped by strong winds and fell on him, the first known storm-related death in the state.

Mooresville Fire Department Assistant Chief Curt Deaton said the unidentified man was standing near his car Wednesday afternoon when the dead tree broke and hit him around 2:44 p.m.

Ida flooded coastal areas in New Jersey after slamming the Carolinas and Virginia.

Strong winds and waves are causing severe beach erosion along the New Jersey shore. However, the rain has not been as heavy as first predicted and that could help ease the flooding.

Many streets are flooded in Cape May County, which was under a state of emergency. Although officials suggested voluntary evacuations of low-lying areas late Thursday, there was no immediate word of any mandatory evacuations.

In southern Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell arrived at a Delaware State Police troop in Rehoboth Beach early today to get an update on conditions after the storm prompted road and school closings throughout the southern Delmarva peninsula.

Markell also plans to visit the bridge over Indian River inlet, which was closed by high water. State Route 1 between Dewey Beach and Bethany Beach remain closed after water broke through the dunes.

Officials say a morning high tide could leave further flooding, but conditions are expected to improve later in the day.

Delmarva Power crews are working to restore to about 1,000 customers, almost all of them in Sussex County.

Just up the coast, people are up to their knees in water on some parts of Long Island as remnants of Ida pound the East Coast.

While rain has subsided, some areas are flooded in Freeport, on the south shore. Raw wind gusts of up to 36 mph made it difficult to breathe and move.