PECO Restores Service to More Than 99% of Customers Impacted By Sandy

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Working around-the-clock for a week straight, more than 4,700 PECO employees, contractors and workers from utilities around the country have restored electric service to 99 percent of the 850,000 PECO customers impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

Crews from Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, and PECO's Chicago-and Baltimore-based sister utilities BGE and ComEd are working along-side PECO employees until every customer is restored.

At 6 p.m., Monday, less than 4,500 customers remained without service, 2,900 in Bucks County and 1,000 in Montgomery County. The company also is working to restore scattered outages in Chester, Delaware and Philadelphia counties.

PECO expects service to be restored to most customers currently without electricity by midnight tonight. Service for a small number of customers, with the most isolated and more significant damage, should be restored by mid-week. Crews are currently focused on remaining jobs, each of which could require hours and hours of work, to restore service to all customers remaining without power.

Hurricane Sandy caused widespread damage along the East Coast, causing power interruptions for nearly 9 million customers in the Northeast and locally to more than 850,000 PECO customers – making Sandy the most damaging storm in company history.

As part of the restoration effort, PECO and supporting field forces have completed more than 15,000 repair jobs, including nearly 4,000 jobs related to damaged trees. Crews also have replaced:

• 133 miles of wire (comparably, PECO replaced 86 miles of wire with Hurricane Irene)
• 16,057 fuses
• 2,272 cross arms
• 565 poles (comparably, PECO replaced 190 poles with Hurricane Irene)
• 279 transformers (comparably, PECO replaced 114 transformers with Hurricane Irene)

While clean up continues, customers should stay away from downed power lines and damaged equipment. Always assume PECO's equipment is energized, even if there is an outage in your neighborhood. Customers should report dangerous conditions to PECO immediately at 1-800-841-4141.

Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation EXC. PECO serves 1.6 million electric and 494,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania and employs about 2,400 people in the region. PECO delivered 82.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 38.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2011. 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.

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