Strong winds throughout Philadelphia area cause over 40,000 PECO outages

After strong winds hit the area overnight, many PECO customers are left without power.

As of 8 a.m. Monday morning, PECO is reporting over 40,000 customers remain without power.

Throughout the night and morning, wind gusts of over 60 mph, as well as rainfall, caused downed trees, and extensive damage to electric equipment.

PECO says, ” In just 16 hours, PECO crews have restored service to more than 80 percent of the customers impacted by yesterday’s severe weather. As of 8 a.m. today, approximately 40,000 customers remain without power. While damage is widespread across the PECO service area, the most heavily concentrated damage occurred in Delaware and Montgomery counties.”

Outage totals, as of 8 a.m.:

• Bucks County = 7,800
• Chester County = 8,000
• Delaware County = 13,700
• Montgomery County = 13,000
• Philadelphia County = 1,500
• York County = 600

PECO says its ‘Emergency Response Organization’, “remains activated and all available personnel are working to restore service to our customers safely and as quickly as possible.”

As a weather system with accumulating snow is coming to the area on Wednesday and Thursday, PECO is “prepared for this event and has enhanced our staffing plans to ensure necessary resources are available to respond for our customers.”

PECO reminds all people to “stay away from damaged electric equipment, especially downed power lines and tree limbs that may come into contact with power lines. Call PECO at 1-800-841-4141 to report any downed equipment.”

Customers without power can access their account information, report an outage, and track their restoration status through the PECO mobile app or on www.peco.com.