PECO Expects to Have 90 Percent of Customers Power Restored Tonight

Information for PECO:

More than 4,600 PECO employees, contractors and workers (from as far away as Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, and PECO’s Chicago-based sister utility ComEd) have restored service to more than 725,000 of the 850,000 PECO customers impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  An additional 400 support personnel from Maryland and ComEd joined the restoration effort this morning. 

PECO expects service to be restored to about 90 percent of the customers impacted by the storm by tonight, with most of the remaining customers to be restored by Sunday.  Service for a small number of customers, with the most isolated damage, should be restored early next week. 

“This is the worst damage I have ever seen,” said Pat O’Neil, a 25-year PECO veteran supervisor who has been working 16 hour shifts to restore service since the beginning of the storm.  “Many of the areas we are working in had significant damage, including multiple downed trees and poles, downed wires, and damaged equipment.  In some of these areas, we need to completely rebuild the electric distribution system and supporting infrastructure to restore service to our customers.”

Hurricane Sandy left nearly 9 million customers without power in 15 U.S. states according to the Department of Energy.  More than 4 million customers remain without service along the East Coast, with hundreds of thousands without power in neighboring states.  The most damaging storm in PECO history, Sandy brought nearly 6 inches of torrential rains and more than 36 hours of winds gusting to more than 85 mph in Southeastern, Pennsylvania.

Since the storm moved out of our region, PECO field forces have completed more than 13,800 repair jobs, including more than 2,700 jobs related to damaged trees, and the company’s Customer Service Organization has handled more than 1 million customer calls.  Crews also have replaced:

· 70 miles of wire

· 8,681 fuses

· 1,020 cross arms

· 265 poles

At Noon, on Friday about 125,000 customers remain without service.  Specifically:

· Bucks County =  75,000

· Chester County = 5,500

· Delaware County = 3,800

· Montgomery County = 38,000

· Philadelphia County = 2,700

While clean up continues, customers should stay away from downed power lines and damaged equipment.  Always assume PECO’s equipment is energized, even if there is an outage in your neighborhood.  Customers should report dangerous conditions to PECO immediately at 1-800-841-4141.