ALLENTOWN, Pa.---Completing a storm-recovery effort unprecedented in company history, PP&L, Inc. restored service Monday morning (9/20) to all but a handful of the last remaining customers without power because of Hurricane Floyd.

Since Thursday (9/16), a force of 500 linemen and electrical workers completed more than 3,500 jobs to repair or replace wires, poles and electrical equipment damaged by the effects of Floyd.

An initial review of all the outages caused by the storm shows that more than 350,000 PP&L customers were without electricity at some point. That's more than a quarter of the company's 1.3 million customers.

"Our appreciation goes to the PP&L line crews and support personnel, as well as to area contractors and other electric companies, who did an incredible amount of work to repair that much damage in just four days," said Robert M. Geneczko, vice president of Power Delivery for PP&L.

"We had to make twice as many repairs because of Floyd as we have ever experienced after a storm," he added.

More than 2,000 people from PP&L and supporting companies were involved in the recovery effort, working around the clock since Floyd hit. Electric companies from Pittsburgh; West Virginia; Ontario, Canada; and Quebec, Canada, sent line crews to help in the cleanup.

"We also appreciate the understanding our customers have shown," Geneczko said. "We know that being without electricity is a major hardship. All of our efforts over the last four days were done with one objective in mind: Restoring service to every PP&L customer as quickly and safely as possible."

In addition to the extraordinary work done by line crews, PP&L meter readers; technicians; engineers; and office workers provided various support services:

-- To help customers who were without power for extended periods, PP&L set up distribution centers for ice and dry ice in communities across its 10,000-square-mile service area.

-- In conjunction with local emergency management agencies, PP&L helped arrange water supply in certain areas.

-- PP&L employees made nearly 10,000 telephone calls to customers to check on their needs, offer assistance and provide information about the progress crews were making. Several of the employees on the phones were volunteers supporting the recovery effort.

Floyd caused more damage by far to PP&L's electrical system than any storm in the last 20 years. Prior to Floyd, the worst storm PP&L experienced in the last two decades was a snow and wind storm on March 4, 1993, which required about 1,800 repair jobs and left 152,000 customers without electricity.

The 1993 storm required almost three days to get all affected customers back in service. The cleanup work following Floyd, which caused about twice as much damage, took just slightly more time.

In PP&L's 80-year history, the only storms comparable to Floyd for number of power outages were Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972, Hurricane Hazel in October 1954 and a major winter storm in March 1958.