As PECO continues to work to restore electric service to those impacted
by Wednesday’s winter ice storm, the company reminds customers to take
precautions for their safety. Customers are urged to take advantage of
local warming centers and shelters or make other arrangements to stay
safe.
Although significant progress has been made to restore service to those
affected by the storm, approximately 67,500 customers remain without
service. Service will be restored today for many of those customers who
remain without power. However, some customers in the most heavily
damaged areas will be without service into early this week.
The damage from this storm is so severe that, in some cases, entire
portions of the electric system need to be completely rebuilt, causing
lengthy repair work. We understand this is hard for our customers, and
we will continue to work until service is restored to each and every
customer.
PECO urges customers to stay safe and always stay away from any
storm-damaged electrical equipment, especially downed power lines and
tree limbs that may come into contact with power lines. Always consider
that downed electrical wires are energized and report them to the
company immediately.
Exercise caution when using generators to power your home and never use
a generator, grill or other similar devices indoors or in an attached
garage. Read and adhere to the manufacturer’s instructions for safe
operation and be sure not to overload the generator.
Working around the clock, PECO crews, contractors and other support
personnel from throughout the country and Canada have restored service
to more than 90 percent of the 715,000 customers affected by the second
most damaging storm in company history in terms of customer outages.
Wednesday’s storm caused extensive damage to trees, tree limbs and
electrical equipment. The restoration process has been a monumental
effort. More than 5,700 PECO employees, contractors and workers from
visiting utilities are working around the clock to restore service to
customers. This includes crews from our sister utilities – BGE in
Baltimore and ComEd and Chicago – and others from Canada and across the
country, including Arkansas, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and
Ohio.
Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility
subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE:EXC). PECO serves 1.6
million electric and 497,000 natural gas customers in southeastern
Pennsylvania and employs about 2,400 people in the region. PECO
delivered 76.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 37.5 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2012. Founded in 1881, PECO is
one of the Greater Philadelphia Region's most active corporate citizens,
providing leadership, volunteer and financial support to numerous arts
and culture, education, environmental, economic development and
community programs and organizations.
Stay updated with PECO on social media on Twitter @PECOConnect and
Facebook www.facebook.com/pecoconnect.
If you are a member of the media and would like to receive PECO news
releases via e-mail, please send your e-mail address to PECO.Communication@exeloncorp.com.
Copyright Business Wire 2014