News Releases

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (March 5, 2018) — PPL Electric Utilities has restored about 200,000 customers affected by Friday’s nor’easter, and is moving resources into its hardest-hit areas to further support restoration work there.

Storm-caused outages were predominantly restored Sunday night (3/4) in the western parts of our service territory. These areas include the Williamsport and Bloomsburg areas, Harrisburg and Lancaster, and the Wilkes-Barre and Schuylkill areas.

The eastern part of PPL’s service area contains the bulk of the remaining outages. Our hardest-hit areas include the Poconos and Lehigh Valley regions as well as northern Bucks and Montgomery counties.

Remaining outages in the hardest-hit areas will predominantly be restored by 11 p.m. Wednesday (3/7). It’s important to note that most customers in these areas will have power restored earlier than that. Customers will receive updated restoration times when crews arrive to make repairs.

“As we wrap up storm work in our western territory, we are moving crews from other parts of our service territory to assist in the hardest-hit regions,” said Stephanie Raymond, vice president, Distribution Operations. “We are bringing in extensive additional resources to support this recovery effort and are working around the clock to restore all customers to service.”

PPL Electric Utilities has more than 1,700 workers doing power restoration, including line repair crews, tree crews and assessors. We have mutual assistance crews from as far away as Florida, Texas, and Alabama. 

As of 11 a.m. Monday (3/5), about 32,000 customers remained out of service. This storm will rank among the 10 most damaging in PPL’s service area.

Accessibility is still an issue. Trees, and snow in the northern parts of our region, are making access to job sites difficult. We continue to work with state and local agencies to clear roads and improve access to work areas.

We are tracking another snowstorm that is forecast to hit our service area Tuesday night into Wednesday. We will still have our expanded storm staffing in place when that storm arrives.

The best way to stay up to date on your outage is by signing up for PPL Alerts at www.pplelectric.com/alerts. Restoration progress can be followed though our outage center at pplelectric.com/outage.  

We urge customers to stay safe:

• Always stay away from any downed lines, keep kids and pets away from them and report fallen wires immediately by calling 1-800-DIAL-PPL.
• If you have to run a generator, make sure you run it outdoors in a well-ventilated area — never indoors or in a garage.
• Use flashlights, not candles, to reduce fire risk.

PPL Electric Utilities provides electric delivery service to more than 1.4 million homes and businesses in Pennsylvania and ranks among the best utility companies in the country for customer service and reliability. PPL Electric Utilities is a major employer in the communities it serves. It is a subsidiary of PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL). For more information visit www.pplelectric.com.