Atlantic City Electric Working to Restore Service for All Remaining Customers Following Severe Storms
Published on April 14, 2020
Atlantic City Electric is continuing work to restore service for customers who lost power due yesterday's severe storms, which included damaging winds gusting higher than 70 miles per hour. The company's Emergency Response Organization is mobilized with all company resources dedicated to restoring service for customers safely and as efficiently as possible.
More than 65,000 customers were impacted by these damaging storms. As of 11 a.m., 4,500 customers remain without power due to the storm, with most of these customers located in Atlantic and Cape May counties, where the most damage to the local energy grid occurred due to these storms. With more than 500 individual jobs left to complete, much work remains to restore service for all customers.
"Our crews have been working tirelessly since these storms began yesterday, and we will continue our focus around the clock until all customers are restored," said Gary Stockbridge, Atlantic City Electric region president. "We know it is difficult for our customers who are without power, especially at this challenging time. We are committed to restoring service for every customer safely and as quickly as possible."
Atlantic City Electric crews remain focused on safety and the company urges customers to stay away from downed wires and assume any downed wire is energized. To report an outage or downed wire, call 1-800-833-7476 or report and track through our mobile app or the company's website at www.atlanticictyelectric.com.
"The safety of our employees, contractors and customers is paramount," said Stockbridge. "We are ensuring our personnel, and the personnel from our sister companies who are supporting us, are abiding by all CDC and state government executive orders on social distancing and personal hygiene guidelines."
Based on the current assessment of damage, Atlantic City Electric expects to have service restored for all customers by tonight. Many of the remaining outages impact small numbers of customers. Each of these jobs require the work of a crew, with some requiring multiple crews, to restore service—in many cases just to restore service for a single customer. Some individual customer outages may take longer based on damage and the nature of the repair that must occur to restore service.
Atlantic City Electric has more than tripled the size of its field workforce. In addition to internal line mechanics and other field workers, Atlantic City Electric has local overhead line contractors and tree-trimming personnel, as well as crews from its sister companies, BGE, Delmarva Power, PECO and Pepco, assisting in this restoration effort. The company also has additional support personnel through its mutual assistance agreements, adding more than 200 additional personnel.
These additional personnel will assist the company's efforts to restore service for customers safely and efficiently and will have a high degree of situational awareness regarding safe work conditions and actions during the pandemic.
Readers are encouraged to visit The Source, Atlantic City Electric's online news room. For more information about Atlantic City Electric, visit atlanticcityelectric.com. Follow the company on Facebook at facebook.com/atlanticcityelectric and on Twitter at twitter.com/acelecconnect. Our mobile app is available at atlanticcityelectric.com/mobileapp.