ALLENTOWN, Pa.---"During crunch times like these, the refrain 'It's not my job' is not a phrase heard around here," said Robert M. Geneczko, vice president for Power Delivery at PP&L, Inc.

From the central command post in PP&L's storm emergency center at PP&L's Lehigh Service Center, a few miles southwest of Allentown, Geneczko quickly rattles off a half dozen examples of employees volunteering to do "cross-over" duty. He has seen a lot of this kind of teamwork since PP&L activated storm emergency conditions early Thursday morning as Hurricane Floyd picked up steam.

About 400 people from throughout PP&L have volunteered to do "cross-over" jobs to aid in restoring electric service, coupled with people from PP&L's Mobile Work Force, Power Delivery and Delivery Services and Economic Development as well as contractors and workers from other utilities.

"We have people from dozens of different job areas working together to restore service," Geneczko said. "In total, more than 2,000 people are working in shifts around the clock.

"This kind of teamwork and working across job boundaries really defines what PP&L is all about," Geneczko said. "When our customers need us most, our employees are there to pitch in in any way they can."

For example:

-- Meter readers are serving as guides and map readers to escort work crews from Canadian electric companies, facilitating their access to repair downed poles and lines in remote rural locations in eastern and central Pennsylvania.
-- Engineers are serving as assessors, making preliminary damage assessments in advance of the roving work crews and helping to assign the right number of linemen or electricians and to secure the right equipment to do necessary repair work.
-- Office workers from various company departments are making personal phone calls to customers to see if they have any special needs and to better inform them of when their electricity will be restored.
-- Customer service specialists and clerks from PP&L's regional offices are tending to the housing and the feeding of outside work crews.
-- Mobile Work Force crew members are refueling the trucks of the outside crews while they are eating or sleeping in between work shifts.

Here is the latest information from PP&L about its storm recovery activities:

7 Late this afternoon, 22 outside crews from Allegheny Power in West Virginia are joining the 80 outside crews from the following electric utilities to assist PP&L in the customer service restoration activities: Duquesne Light of Pittsburgh, Ontario Hydro of Toronto and Hydro Quebec of Montreal.
7 As of 3 p.m. today about 73,000 PP&L customers remain without electricity throughout PP&L's 29-county service territory in eastern and central Pennsylvania.
7 The 73,000 customers represent a reduction of more than 30,000 from the 104,000 customers who were without electricity at 5 a.m. today.
7 In the past 24 hours, work crews have restored electricity for nearly 183,000 PP&L customers.
7 While PP&L expects to restore electricity to most customers by Sunday, some customers who have extensive damage in inaccessible areas may remain without power until Monday.
7 Any PP&L customer who experiences a power outage should call the company's toll-free service number, 1-800-342-5775 (1-800 DIAL PPL) to report the problem.
7 If customers see a downed wire and cannot reach PP&L's toll-free service number, they should call 911 or their local emergency management agency to report the downed wire.
7 PP&L reports that it has not and will not send any of its own crews to assist other electric utilities in the region until all of PP&L's customers have been restored to service. While PP&L does assist other utilities whenever possible, the company retained all of its crews this week in anticipation of Hurricane Floyd.

Note to editors: We plan to issue an update on the continuing storm recovery process by 9 p.m. this evening.