Thousands without power, some schools closed

About 10,000 PECO customers had their power restored during an extremely windy night, but about about 4,000 customers were still without power this morning.

More than half of this morning's outages are in Chester County, according to PECO spokesman Mike Wood.

Because strong gusts are expected to continue for hours, more troublespots could still pop up, he said.

A wind advisory issued by the National Weather Service forecast "blustery northwest winds" with gusts up to 45 m.p.h. until 1 p.m. today.

Elsewhere in the region, a half-dozen school closings and about 20 delays are being reported, mostly in Berks and Northampton Counties. (For the latest list, go to: http://www.nbc10.com/closings/index.html.)

The problems began Saturday night as a storm brought freezing rain, causing icy limbs to fall, mostly in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, he said.

Even after the skies cleared, high winds downed limbs, trees and powerlines, and by midday yesterday the numbers of customers without power in Philadelphia and its suburban counties reached about 16,000.

Most of the outages "involved small numbers of customers," he said. "It was widely scattered."

PECO was fully staffed yesterday, with about 500 workers in the field, he said.

Some problems can be fixed by a single "troubleman," the technician who checks out initial reports. Line crews and tree crews can each have two to four workers, and if a tree brings downs a transformer as well as electrical lines, an environmental crew is added to deal with "leaking insulating oil," he said.