More Peco customers lose power following one of the worst storms in the company’s history

Thousands of Peco customers in the Philadelphia region were forced to face Monday’s brutal heat without power.

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, 1,885 customers still had no power, down from more than 11,200 experiencing outages Monday afternoon.

Last week’s powerful storms knocked out power to 327,000 customers, according to spokesperson Ben Armstrong, making it one of the 20 most-impactful storms in the company’s 144-year history.

“We saw whole trees uprooted,” Armstrong said. “The damage was a combination of water-soaked grounds due to the significant amount of rain we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks… and the damaging straight-line winds we saw in many parts of our service territory.”

Armstrong said new outages that occurred Monday were mostly caused by damaged trees coming down in Broomall, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford. There was also a possible equipment issue that led to new outages in Chester County.

“After large storms, you will typically see these types of events come in for the next several days,” Armstrong said.

Peco had expected to restore power to all its customers Monday before the new outages occured. The company is being aided by nearly 3,000 workers from nine states who have been helping to restore power since the storm hit.

PJM, which manages the electrical grid in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and 10 other states, issued a hot-weather alert that extends through Wednesday as a heat wave blankets the region.

It hit 99 degrees in Philadelphia late Monday afternoon, setting a new record for the date. Tuesday temperatures could reach as high as 100 degrees in the city for the first time in 13 years.

» READ MORE: Philly could see 100 degrees for the first time in 13 years, but the heat wave may break sooner than expected

Despite that, Peco didn’t anticipate major issues associated with the heat, and didn’t have plans to issue any voltage reductions to its customers.

“It’s entirely possible we could see some minor issues across the local energy grid,” Armstrong said. “But if that does happen, we do have resiliency in our infrastructure that gives us the ability to reroute the flow of power to continue to meet the needs of our customers.”

A senior-living complex in Delaware County went without power for more than 48 hours, said Martha Jacobs, a resident of the Wesley Enhanced Main Line facility in Media.

Wesley operators said they had four generators operating during the outage, but Jacobs said that by Friday night temperatures in the building bumped into the 80s. She said of the 200 residents, most are over 80 and one is 103.

“I cannot blame the staff because they’re trying to figure out what to do better.”

She did blame Peco for what she viewed as a slow response. “That wasn’t a hurricane, tornado, or a 12-inch flooding event,” she said.

A Peco spokesperson said that nursing homes were a priority but that in the Media area downed trees had slowed the process.

Peco offered some tips to customers looking to lower their electric bills during the summer months. They include: