Some good news for those New Yorkers waiting for the city's skeleton to return to near normal: ConEdison says it'll have electricity restored by Saturday to the 659,000 customers in Manhattan who are currently still without power after Sandy swept through the region.

That timeline largely sticks to earlier estimates of power restoration to lower Manhattan, as Bloomberg News explains. ConEd, meanwhile, has more details on the restoration effort:

Con Edison restored power on Wednesday to customers served by two underground electrical networks that were taken out of service Monday night as the floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy were surging.

One network is in lower Manhattan and serves 2,000 customers. The customers are in an area bordered by Vesey Street on the north; West Street; Broadway and State Street on the east; and the Battery's southern tip.

The second area is Con Edison's Brighton Beach network, serving about 28,200 customers…As of 4:30 a.m. today, Con Edison reported approximately 676,000 customers out of service. That included 227,000 in Manhattan, 103,000 in Queens, 59,000 in Brooklyn, 83,000 in Staten Island and 36,000 in the Bronx. In Westchester County, the company reported 166,000 customers out of service.

As the power company notes, however,, there's still significant building-to-building work that needs to happen before many New Yorkers will see their lights flick back on, even if power networks are restored: flooded basements have to be pumped and damaged equipment fixed