Apr 10, 2001
PPL Crews Restore Power After Thunderstorms Rip Through Area Last Night
PRNewswire
ALLENTOWN, Pa.
Summer-like temperatures yesterday brought summer-like thunderstorms Monday night affecting more than 20,000 PPL Electric Utilities Corp. customers throughout the company's 29-county service territory.
Line crews restored to more than 220 separate cases of trouble during the night and restored 97 percent of the customers by early this morning.
"We are well prepared to face these kinds of storms and worked throughout the night to clear up the trouble," said Robert Gombos, vice president for Mobile Work Force Operations at PPL. "Our crews did an excellent job last night and are continuing to work to restore service to all customers as quickly as possible."
Although the damage was spread across PPL's service area, the storms hit the Lehigh Region hardest. The company reported that about 500 customers were still without power as of 7 a.m. today, most of them in the Bloomsburg, Quarryville, Pocono and Bucks/Montgomery areas. Gombos said that he expects most of those customers to have power by noon and all customers to be restored by 3 p.m. today.
Customers who are without power should call PPL toll free at 1-800-342-5775 (1-800 DIAL PPL) to report the outage. Also, customers should call PPL to report any wires on the ground or hanging low near the ground because of the high winds. Fallen wires may be dangerous, even if they don't appear to be "live." To be safe, stay at least 12 feet from any wire on the ground.
PPL Electric Utilities is a subsidiary of PPL Corp. Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corp. (NYSE: PPL) generates electricity at power plants in Pennsylvania, Maine and Montana; markets wholesale or retail energy in 42 U.S. states and Canada; and delivers electricity to nearly 6 million customers in Pennsylvania, in the United Kingdom and in Latin America.
Reminder to Editors: During storm emergencies, reporters can receive updated PPL Electric Utilities storm information by accessing our media web site and using the StormOutage feature.
NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19981015/PHTH025
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SOURCE: PPL Corp.
Contact: Constance Walker PPL Corp., 610-774-5997, or Fax, 610-774-5281
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