Hurricane Floyd barged through PP&L, Inc.'s service area Thursday afternoon and evening (9/16), causing power outages that affected almost 15 percent of PP&L's 1.3 million customers. As of 10 p.m., 133,000 PP&L customers were without power.
Coupled with the 60,000 customers restored to service by PP&L crews earlier in the day, Floyd is responsible for more than 190,000 homes and businesses across eastern and central Pennsylvania being without electricity.
"This is one of the worst storms ever to hit this area," said Robert M. Geneczko, PP&L vice president for Power Delivery. "In terms of the number of customers affected, it is comparable with Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972."
Agnes, at its peak, left about 130,000 PP&L customers without electricity.
He said PP&L crews were keeping up with the storm early in the day. However, after a full day of soaking rain, Floyd's strong winds have played havoc with PP&L's electric delivery system since late this afternoon.
"The wind really picked up as the center of the storm got closer to our area," Geneczko said. "From about 4 p.m. on, the damage reports started coming in steadily and the number of customers who lost electric service skyrocketed."
He said PP&L will have crews working around the clock to restore service to customers as quickly as possible. PP&L is supplementing its forces with contractors, and crews from other electric companies. PP&L has been able to secure crews from Duquesne Light Co. in Pittsburgh, Ontario Hydro in Toronto, Canada, and Hydro Quebec in Montreal, Canada.
Help is hard to come by, however, since Floyd has caused similar problems for most electric companies up and down the East Coast from Florida to New England.
While PP&L expects that most customers will have service restored within the next 48 hours, the company projects that it will not be able to restore service to all of its customers until Monday (9/20).
The projection is based on the number of repair jobs PP&L must complete, and the fact that some areas where customers have no power are currently inaccessible to PP&L vehicles because of flooding.
More than 1,400 separate repair jobs to PP&L power lines, poles and electrical equipment must be made because of the damage done by Floyd. Most of the damage is the result of fallen trees and tree limbs, which knocked down power lines and poles.
In several areas, wires are on the ground. These wires are a safety hazard. Customers who see a wire down should stay a safe distance away and call PP&L immediately at 1-800-342-5775 (1-800 DIAL PPL), or their local emergency phone number, to report the problem.
Customers should use that same PP&L toll-free number to report power outages. The company will have additional employees at its customer service call center through the night to answer customer calls. Customers may experience delays getting through because of the number of people trying to call.
Damage is spread across PP&L's 29-county service area in eastern and central Pennsylvania.
"Portions of our electric delivery system have been seriously damaged by this storm. We're making every effort to rebuild the system and restore service to customers as quickly as possible. But it will take some time. We're asking for customers' patience and understanding," Geneczko said.