SOUTH ABINGTON TOWNSHIP, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — The winds from the storm last night have left a trail of power outages throughout NEPA, and thousands in Lackawanna County are still without power.
Over 900 people have reported power outages in the South Abington Township and neighboring townships. The cleanup process is underway but as you can see behind me, fallen trees like this one are scattered throughout the area on roads, houses, and powerlines, waiting to be cleared.
Gusty winds left trails of damage & power outages behind. So much so that PPL had to bring in other resources.
"We brought in crews from utility companies in other states to assist our crews in making repairs, and our crews are responding to approximately 650 damaged locations across our 29 county service territories," said Jane George, Regional Affairs Director for PPL.
Within those damaged territories are thousands without power.
"Heavy winds did cause a lot of outages, in fact, we have about 18,000 of our 1.5 million customers without power as of 11:00 today," Jane added.
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It won't be a "quick" fix for PPL to get that number down to zero, some areas may have to wait another day without power.
"We prioritize those repairs that restore power to the largest amount. We're telling customers right now that we expect all customers to be restored by 11:00 p.m. on Friday, the 5th," Jane continued.
For Katrina Steadle, her home has been without power now since Tuesday after one tree fell on Tuesday night and another on Wednesday night, blocking the roads to leave.
"There was a big tree down at that end, so we couldn't get in or out that way onto the driveway here, and we can't get down through this way because of the tree. It was frightening, I was in the kitchen and we heard a big huge bang," explained Katrina Steadle, of South Abington Township.
With electric heating and appliances, Steadle doesn't think she can spend another day in her home until power is restored.
"I can't cook, I can't boil water, I have no internet, I can't pay PPL, my electric bill, so I'm thinking of finding a hotel tonight because we're freezing in there, it's so cold and you can't sleep with all your coats on and stuff it's so uncomfortable," Steadle stated.
You can check the status of your power outage at PPLElectric.com/outage and it is also encouraged to report any power outages you may have experienced Wednesday or Thursday, by texting "outage" to 898-775 or using PPL's website.
