More than 70,000 Penelec customers within its 32-county service area were affected. Locally, about 13,600 customers were affected by the storm. , said Penelec Area Manager John Shimko.
The storm impacted the local area with about 200 trouble locations reported in theClearfieldOperationCenterarea between Brookville and Tyrone. So far about two dozen broken poles and cross arms have been identified.
As of 7:30 a.m. Friday, Shimko said service had been restored to approximately 8,400 customers with 5,200 customers remaining without power. He said Penelec will be using a helicopter today to assess damage along the main transmission and sub-transmission lines. Thirty-two additional outside crews will join local Penelec lineman in the restoration effort.
He said damage assessment is expected to be completed Friday and crews will sectionalize as many trouble areas as possible to restore as many customers as possible. As larger numbers of customers are restored, He said Penelec will then focus on individual customer outages that often are caused by service wires to homes being torn down by fallen trees.
“Restoration work is expected to continue throughout the weekend,” Shimko said.
Customers can view updated outage numbers and affected customers by municipality from their computer or smart phone at Penelec’s outage web site.
To report power outages and downed lines, please call Penelec at 1-888-544-4877 (1-888-LIGHTSS). It’s the fastest way to begin the restoration process, Shimko said.
Penelec reminds people to stay away from all downed wires as they may be energized and dangerous.