PPL Electric Utilities Continues to Receive Outage Calls from Areas that Received Heavy Icing; New Jobs Require Company to Revise Estimates
Situation: Customers continue to report power outages this morning (1/10), in areas of Monroe and Carbon counties in northeastern Pennsylvania hit by a second ice storm over the weekend. The weight of the ice is causing trees and tree limbs to fall onto power lines several days after the storm.
There has not been a time since the ice storm first struck on Thursday (1/6) that we have not received reports of additional outages from customers in northeastern Pennsylvania. Crews already have completed more than 1,000 repair jobs, but with the new outage reports that we continue to receive, they still have 700 additional locations where they must rebuild or repair lines and equipment.
The crews, from PPL Electric Utilities and other companies, are working 16-hour shifts under difficult and dangerous working conditions to restore power to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
PPL Electric Utilities bases its estimates of when all customers will have power restored on the amount of work needed to repair damaged lines and equipment. The company has revised the estimate several times because of new outage calls from areas that had extensive icing.
Customers Restored: More than 191,000 as of noon Monday (1/10)
Customers Without Power: 30,000 as of noon Monday (1/10) – 22,000 in Monroe County, 8,000 in Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties
Affected Areas: Monroe, Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties
Number of Jobs Pending: 700
Cause of Outages: Ice on trees and power lines, which began to build up in the first storm on Thursday (1/6) and was aggravated by a second ice storm on Saturday (1/8).
Est. Restoration Time: Additional new outage calls continue to come in from areas of Monroe and Carbon counties. Because jobs continue to be added to the schedule, we have extended the restoration times for those areas.
We expect to have electric service restored to most customers in Monroe County Wednesday evening (1/12), although it may be until Thursday (1/13) before every customer is back in service.
We expect to have electric service restored to most customers in the White Haven area and northern Carbon County Tuesday evening (1/11).
We expect to have electric service restored to all customers in the other affected areas of Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties today (1/10).
Additional Information: This morning (1/10), there are 365 linemen and electricians from PPL Electric Utilities and other companies working in Monroe County, and 360 linemen and electricians working in affected areas of Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties. There are also about 100 tree trimming crews working in those areas.
Other utilities and contractors from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, D.C., have sent linemen and tree trimming crews to help PPL Electric Utilities restore service.
PPL Electric Utilities continues to work with emergency management officials in the affected counties to coordinate services and help meet community needs.
Customers without power may get drinking water and ice at no cost from local stores. These include Mr. Z's markets in Monroe County; Joe's Kwik Mart stores in Carbon, Luzerne and Monroe counties; Boyer's Markets in Schuylkill and Carbon counties; and Redner's Markets in Schuylkill and Carbon counties.
Employees of PPL Electric Utilities have made more than 40,000 phone calls to customers since the first storm, advising them of the work being done to restore service and letting them know about special services available in the community.
Customers with special needs should call PPL Electric Utilities' toll free number at 1-800-342-5775.
During storm emergencies, reporters can view updated PPL Electric Utilities storm information by visiting our news Web site at www.pplnewsroom.com. The StormAlert feature provides system-wide and regional information.
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