About 18,000 Pennsylvania Power & Light Co. customers remained without electricity as of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday (11/15) as the company continues efforts to recover from a damaging snow storm.
Since midday yesterday, PP&L has restored service to more than 53,000 customers in northeastern and central Pennsylvania. Most of the remaining outages are in areas north and west of Harrisburg, including Juniata County and the Sunbury, Williamsport and Lock Haven regions.
The company expects to complete the storm recovery work Thursday night, according to Robert M. Geneczko, PP&L's vice president for Electrical Systems. Line crews will complete 900 repair jobs related to the storm. The storm left about 71,000 PP&L customers without power.
"Because it will take more than 24 hours to restore service in some cases, PP&L is advising customers without power to make arrangements for the night at a place that has light and heat," Geneczko said.
PP&L is cooperating with local emergency management agencies in areas affected by power outages to make sure elderly customers and people with special needs remain safe.
"We appreciate customers' patience and understanding in what has been a difficult week," he said. "We're working to get the power back on in all areas as quickly as possible and we're supporting outreach services to take care of customers with special needs."
Tuesday's "nor'easter" dropped as much as a foot of heavy, wet snow in portions of PP&L's service area. With the ground already soft from recent rains, the weight of the snow on tree limbs — some still with leaves on them — caused many trees to topple, bringing down power lines as they fell.
This is the second large clean-up job for PP&L crews this week. High winds accompanying a storm on Saturday (11/11) caused power outages for 88,000 PP&L customers.
PP&L line repair crews are getting help from PECO Energy Co. in the storm recovery effort. PECO is sending work crews from the Philadelphia area to assist in the hardest hit locations.
"Electric utilities have mutual aid agreements by which they help one another in emergency conditions if they are able," Geneczko explained. "We're in an emergency and we're grateful for the assistance PECO Energy crews are providing."
In addition, PP&L has sent crews from the southern part of its service area, where the storm brought mostly rain, to places with severe snow-related damage. As conditions permit, PP&L will move crews west from the Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and Pocono areas, where storm cleanup is nearly complete, to help in the Susquehanna Valley.