PPL Electric Utilities crews in the Harrisburg area have been working since before daybreak Saturday (9/18) to restore power to customers who lost service as remnants of Hurricane Ivan brought wind and heavy rain, downing trees into power lines. Local flooding in some areas may extend restoration times in those areas into early next week.
About 9,400 customers in the Harrisburg area are without service as of 2 p.m. Sunday (9/19).
"We experienced significant damage from tree limbs falling across power lines, and our forces have been frustrated by local flooding from the heavy rain, which has hampered their progress. We are responding to our customers as quickly and as safely as possible," said Robert M. Geneczko, vice president of customer service for PPL Electric Utilities. "Throughout the day, the company will be moving all available crews and contractors to address the hardest hit areas."
He said PPL Electric employees continue to assess the full extent of the damage, especially in areas where flooding is a concern. The company is planning to send line crews from areas with limited storm damage to help speed the recovery efforts in the hardest hit areas. The company also has requested help from other regional utilities and is bringing in outside contractors to help restore service both in the Harrisburg area and in the Lehigh Valley, where another 12,000 customers are without service.
Geneczko said PPL Electric expects the majority of customers to be restored to service by Monday. Some outages will extend into next week, especially where flooding is a problem.
"We understand the frustrations of customers without power, especially those in flooded areas," he said. "Flooding creates significant public safety concerns with electrical equipment. We do not want a difficult situation to become tragic by restoring electric service in certain areas before it is safe to do so."
Because of safety issues surrounding the flooding, certain customers may be taken out of service at the request of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and other local safety organizations.
He said that the availability of line crews from throughout the Eastern U.S. is severely strained as the result of the string of hurricanes that have battered the region. Since no electric utility can possibly hire enough staff to restore service after major storm damage, the companies rely on contracted outside services and mutual assistance pacts with other utilities to handle the challenges posed by major storms.
"The extraordinary events of the past three weeks in the South have made this one of the most challenging periods ever for electricity restoration crews," said Geneczko. "Crews from up and down the East Coast are assisting in the South and responding to storms in the own service areas."
PPL Electric released about 100 of its own linemen and support personnel as well as a similar number of contractors to help with restoration in the South.
"While we certainly could have used these resources to help us with our restoration efforts here and in other areas this weekend, we believe that — on balance — it was the right thing to send them to help with the restoration in the South, where there has been catastrophic damage and tragic loss of life," said Geneczko. "Even so, we don't anticipate that the lack of these crews will seriously delay the restoration of service in the Harrisburg area."
Crews from other portions of PPL Electric's service territory will be dispatched as soon as they are available to the Harrisburg area to assist local crews.