Peco outages hit Philadelphia region on Christmas

Heavy, wind-driven rain that poured down across the region Thursday night left thousands of Peco customers with power outages on Christmas morning, darkening holiday trees and some spirits.

Generally, 1 to 2 inches of rain fell during the storm, but some isolated areas in Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties got up to 3 inches, said Joe Miketta, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. Winds between 50 and 60 mph were also recorded.

Wind caused falling trees and branches to bring down power lines, said Tom Brubaker, Peco spokesperson. Friday morning, about 90 Peco crews were working throughout the region to restore energy to all affected customers and making “good progress,” he said. About 64,000 customers were affected, he said.

By 9 p.m. on Christmas, about 7,500 remained without power.

“We understand that during a holiday season it’s really hard for customers to be out of power,” Brubaker said. “We are going to work as quickly and as safely as possible to get everyone restored.”

Chester County seemed the hardest hit by the energy outages, with nearly 12,000 customers, or more than 5% of the total customers served, without service Friday morning.

Most of the Chester County customers affected are in Tredyffrin, East Goshen, Easttown, and East Whiteland Townships, according to PECO’s power-outage map.

Peco, headquartered in Philadelphia, serves more than 1.6 million electric customers and more than 532,000 natural gas customers in the city and its surrounding Southeastern Pennsylvania counties.

Less than 5% of customers in the other counties were affected. Peco regularly updates outage information on its map. You can find your county and township here. Brubaker urged anyone who sees a fallen power line to stay away from it.