Harrisburg - State Rep. Ron Buxton (D-Harrisburg) today (2/29) presented the employees of PPL Corporation with a measure of Pennsylvania's gratitude for their efforts to restore power to hundreds of thousands of residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd last September.

This afternoon at the Capitol, Buxton presented PPL employees with a copy of House Resolution 371, which recognizes the "Industrious and hardworking electrical employees from throughout this Commonwealth that earned acclaim for their endeavors on behalf of their customers."

"We are proud of our employees' performance," said Bill Whitehead, PPL's manager of transmission and distribution operations, "especially given the magnitude of the storm and the conditions in which people worked to restore service."

Recently, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted unanimously for the Buxton sponsored resolution to commend state utility employees, who Buxton said, "kept the lights and heat on in the face of a difficult situation."

Hurricane Floyd caused nearly 400,000 interruptions for PPL customers in eastern and central Pennsylvania. In response to this tremendous challenge, PPL crews, on average, completed one repair job every 90 seconds for 99 consecutive hours between September 16th and September 20th.

Fifty percent of those 400,000 customers had their electric service restored within 4 hours from the time power went out. And, 90 percent were restored within 24 hours.
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Based in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corp., is a Fortune 500 company that delivers electricity and natural gas to more than 1.3 million customers in Pennsylvania; sells wholesale energy in 43 U.S. states and Canada; generates electricity at power plants in Pennsylvania, Maine and Montana; delivers electricity to 1.4 million customers in southwest Britain; and delivers electricity to more than 800,000 customers in Chile, Bolivia and El Salvador.