Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. crews have been working around the clock to restore electric service knocked out by violent thunderstorms over the weekend.

As of midday Monday (7/17), about 700 customers remained without power, nearly all of them in the Lancaster region. PP&L crews have restored power to more than 86,000 customers since the storm struck, including 65,000 in Lancaster and Berks counties.

"This is a trying time for customers who have been without power because of the storm," said Larry Downing, PP&L's Lancaster area community development director.

"We appreciate the understanding our customers have shown. We're doing all we can to help people cope with the inconvenience and to restore electric service as quickly as possible," he added.

PP&L hopes to have power back on to all customers by Monday night. Repair crews from across PP&L's 29-county service area have been sent to the Lancaster region to help with the storm recovery effort.

Downing said PP&L has been working with the Lancaster County emergency management agency to provide dry ice to people who have been without power since early Sunday.

Dry ice is being distributed in Quarryville and Lititz, two of the harder-hit areas, to help people keep refrigerated food from spoiling.

Sunday's storms broke an intense heat wave that sent electricity use soaring to record levels throughout the Mid-Atlantic states.

Customers of the PJM Interconnection, a five-state regional power pool serving 9.2 million customers — including the 1.2 million customers of PP&L — set an all-time record for electricity use on Friday (7/14). The new record, unofficially, is 47 million kilowatt-hours, set between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.

PP&L customers set a summer use record of 5,779,000 kilowatt-hours between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Friday. That broke the previous high of 5,638,000 kilowatt-hours on July 20, 1994.

PP&L customers use more electricity in the winter. The company's all-time use record remains 6,508,000 kilowatt-hours set on Feb. 6, 1995.