Crews from PP&L, Inc. and surrounding utilities made significant progress overnight restoring power to electric customers affected by Tuesday's winter storm.

"We have restored a total of 56,000 customers so far," said Bob Geneczko, PP&L's vice president of Power Delivery. "We have been working through the night, and won't stop until every customer has electricity."

About 1,700 customers -- mostly in the Honesdale area -- remained without power as of 5 a.m. Wednesday (12/31).

PP&L had about 100 crews working on the outages, which were spread throughout the Scranton, Honesdale, Bloomsburg and Pocono areas.

Heavy, wet snow and wind knocked down tree limbs and damaged wires.

Another 25 crews from Peco Energy and GPU Energy were called in to help PP&L restore power. "We have mutual aid agreements with these utilities, which were not hit as hard as we were," Geneczko said.

Geneczko noted that some customers are likely to remain without power until sometime later today (12/31). "We ask customers to continue to have patience and understanding. The damage was extensive and we are working as fast as we can."

Customers without power should call PP&L's toll-free customer service number, 1-800-342-5775 (1-800 DIAL PPL). The company brought in additional staff to answer customer calls and questions.

PP&L reminds customers participating in Pennsylvania's customer choice pilot program to call 1-800 DIAL PPL for power outages, no matter which company they have selected as an energy supplier.