PP&L, Inc. crews, working throughout the Labor Day holiday, already have restored electric service to more than 36,000 customers who lost power after a line of strong thunderstorms rumbled across eastern and central Pennsylvania.

Storms with high wind and frequent lightning crossed PP&L, Inc.'s service area from west to east early Monday afternoon (9/7), affecting more than 55,000 of the company's 1.2 million customers.

As of 8 p.m., about 19,000 customers were still without electricity because of the storms. Most of the remaining outages were in the Harrisburg area,western Berks County, the Poconos and upper Bucks and Montgomery counties.

"Our crews responded to the call for help on the holiday and are working to get power back on for all of our customers as quickly as possible," said Robert S. Gombos, vice president of PP&L, Inc.'s Mobile Work Force." We are moving crews from areas that did not receive a lot of storm damage into the harder-hit areas."

He estimated that PP&L, Inc. crews will complete the storm cleanup work Tuesday morning (9/8).

PP&L, Inc. , a subsidiary of PP&L Resources, Inc., provides electric delivery service to homes and businesses in Pennsylvania; generates electricity; sells retail electricity throughout Pennsylvania; and markets or trades wholesale energy to 26 states and Canada through its state-of-the-art Energy Marketing Center.