ALLENTOWN, Pa., May 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- PPL Electric Utilities crews have worked since Thursday night to restore power to more than 100,000 customers throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania. Efforts to restore power to an additional 25,000 customers are expected to continue through Sunday.
Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms ripped through the area Thursday night, heavily damaging the utility's transmission and distribution facilities. Widespread outages were reported in 26 of the 29 counties served by PPL Electric Utilities. The most affected areas are in Dauphin, Cumberland and York counties in the Susquehanna Valley and Pike, Monroe, Wayne and Carbon counties in the Poconos.
Crews from utilities in Philadelphia, Ohio, New York and Connecticut have been mobilized to help with restoration efforts.
With numerous downed trees, wires and poles, each case of trouble requires several crews and takes an average of four to six hours to repair. Storms rolling through the region on Friday night also slowed down progress of restoration efforts.
Restoration efforts are expected to continue through Sunday (5/29), though most affected customers had power restored by midnight Friday.
"Our crews are working around the clock to restore power to as many customers as possible," said Jerry Diehl, PPL Electric Utilities' emergency director. "We've reached out to other utilities for assistance so we could improve the chances that most customers will have power restored before Sunday."
PPL Electric Utilities conducted outreach efforts to customers who were expected to be out of service for more than 24 hours.
Customers should report power outages by calling 1-800-342-5775 (1-800-DIAL-PPL). People are also reminded to stay clear of any downed power lines and to assume any downed line is energized.
Storm outage updates are posted on the Outage Center at www.pplelectric.com. Additional updates are also available on Twitter by following @PPLStormTeam.
PPL Electric Utilities, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), provides electric delivery services to about 1.4 million customers in Pennsylvania and has consistently ranked among the best companies for customer service in the United States. More information is available at www.pplelectric.com.
SOURCE PPL Corporation
