Met-Ed Restores Service to Nearly 90 Percent of Customers Affected by Damaging Snowstorm

READING, Pa., Nov. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Crews from Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed) and other FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) utilities continue service restoration to customers experiencing outages caused by the heavy, wet snow from this past weekend.  As of 11 a.m. today, the company has restored service to 238,000 customers -- nearly 90 percent of all customers who lost power during the storm. There remain about 32,000 still without power.

The counties most affected by the snowstorm include York, Berks, Bucks, Lebanon, Northampton, Monroe, Montgomery, Chester and Lehigh.  Downed trees and branches and impassable roads have hampered restoration efforts.

"I want to again express my appreciation to our customers for their patience as we continue restoring service throughout our territory," said Dave Karafa, Met-Ed regional president.  "We continue to believe that 95 percent of our customers will be restored by Friday, with the remainder restored through the upcoming weekend.  The work that remains includes some of the most severe damage to our system."

Information about Met-Ed's restoration efforts continues to be shared with local officials and customers as soon as it is available.

Met-Ed employs a priority system for restoring service that ensures public safety and restores power to the largest number of customers as quickly as possible.  Eliminating safety hazards is the highest priority.  Crews arrive at trouble locations, make the area safe and move to other areas.  Once that is accomplished, crews begin to repair lines that supply power to crucial public safety facilities or large areas or groups of customers.  A line may be damaged in multiple locations, or at some distance from those who are out of service.  The linemen, tree crews or other workers that customers see may be on their way to make higher-priority repairs, which must be completed before damages closer to a customer's home can be fixed.

After local power lines are repaired and put back in service, damage to individual customer service wires may become apparent.  Customers are reminded that if their neighbor's power is on and theirs is not, the problem may be isolated to their individual service and service to the neighbor could be fed from a different circuit.  Customers are encouraged to report such problems, even if it is later in the restoration process.  

As debris from the storm continues to be cleared, customers are cautioned never to touch downed lines.  Customers should always assume downed wires are carrying electricity and are reminded to keep their children and pets away from downed wires.  Downed wires should be reported immediately to your electric company or local police or fire department. Customers should never try to remove trees or limbs from power lines because they could conduct electricity; instead, wait for emergency services or utility crews to arrive.  

For updated information on the our restoration efforts, current outages, FirstEnergy's storm restoration process and tips for staying safe, go to www.firstenergycorp.com.   Met-Ed will also provide updates via Twitter on @Met_Ed.

FirstEnergy customer call centers are fully staffed.  To report an outage or a downed line, Met-Ed customers should call 1-888-LIGHTSS (1-888-544-4877).  

Met-Ed serves approximately 560,000 customers in 13 Pennsylvania counties.

FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence.  Its 10 electric distribution companies comprise the nation's largest investor-owned electric system.  Its diverse generating fleet features non-emitting nuclear, scrubbed baseload coal, natural gas, and pumped-storage hydro and other renewables, and has a total generating capacity of nearly 23,000 megawatts.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.