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Power companies talk safety as Tropical Storm Ophelia rolls into region with damaging winds, heavy rain

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Published  September 22, 2023 9:44pm EDT
Severe Weather
FOX 29 Philadelphia

PECO talks storm preps

PECO and Drew Anderson discuss storm preps in advance Tropical Storm Ophelia.

PHILADELPHIA - The windy and wet weather will lead to some power outages this weekend.

"This kind of weather can impact trees and damage our electrical equipment and that's our primary concern and what would likely end up causing most of the outages" says Brian Ahrens from PECO Energy.

According to your FOX 29 Weather Authority, the inches of heavy rain this weekend will make the leaves on branches wet and heavy. Add wind gusts in the 40 mph range for most spots and up to 50 mph down the shore, and you have the recipe for branches to fall on power lines.

But, that doesn't mean your power will go out.

PECO has performed quite a few preventive measures to prevent power outages.

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Over the years, they've installed a lot of reclosers, a device that can detect an interruption in a power line. When they detect that trouble spot, they automatically get the power from a different location.

This lead to a flicker of lights at your home, a momentary power outage, or no impact to your power at all.

But, if your power does go out for more than a few minutes, PECO recommends that you call your electricity provider. This puts your power outage is on their radar, and they can give you an estimate of when the power will be restored. Your power company might also have an app for this.

Ahrens did say it can be a safety factor for workers in bucket trucks to be up working on lines when winds are sustained at 30 mph and in light of that, PECO workers wait for winds to diminish when restoring power.

PPL, an electricity company that services the Lehigh Valley, says their smart grid technology also reroutes power and has prevented millions of power outages.

PECO says they'll spend billions over the next few years to install more of that technology around our region. And just like PPL, they'll be doing a lot more tree trimming to prevent a branch from falling on a powerline in the first place.