Hundreds of Lehigh Valley residents were left without power as a result of an intense storm that hit the region on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, PPL was still reporting areas without power across the region. Quoted repair times given by the utility provider ranged from Wednesday afternoon to late into Wednesday night.
PPL has provided a power outage map for residents to check on the status of outages and when the company expects repair work to be completed. PPL customers can report outages at the company's website.
According to PPL's website, the company follows a restoration process following widespread outages. "First, we restore power to critical public facilities, like hospitals, that serve the general public in emergencies. Then, we focus on major power lines and substations, using smart grid technology to reroute power until more difficult repairs can be made."
When it comes to individual homes and businesses that do not fall into the critical public facility category, the company says it prioritizes repairs that will restore power to the largest number of customers and then smaller neighborhoods, individual homes, and businesses.
The storm, which impacted the region Tuesday through early Wednesday, brought heavy rain, severe flooding, and damaging winds to the area. According to the National Weather Service Philadelphia/Mount Holly, the heaviest rain and strongest winds ended shortly after midnight early Wednesday morning, but the organization warned on X/Twitter that additional flooding was possible as rivers and streams could continue to rise. Gusty winds were also expected to persist on Wednesday with gusts near 30-40 mph possible.
