AC Electric Restores Power to Half of Customers

Atlantic City Electric continues to work non-stop to restore electric service to customers who lost power as a result of Hurricane Sandy. At the peak of the storm, more than 220,000 customers lost power. As of 6 a.m. Wednesday, approximately half of those were back on line. The expectation is that 90 percent of mainland customers will be back on line by midnight Sunday, November 4. Damage assessments in the barrier island communities continue and are expected to be completed today. Restoring electric service to the most severely impacted of those barrier island communities may require more than a week.
The remaining outages are largely due to heavy localized flooding and related storm damage, making access to communities and the completion of repairs more complicated. Atlantic City Electric mobilized more than 1,200 service personnel including company teams and crews from Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Florida, New Mexico, South Carolina, Mississippi, Indiana, Tennessee and Louisiana, among many others. Through its parent company, Pepco Holdings, Inc., (PHI), Atlantic City Electric continues to work to bring in additional crews through the utility mutual assistance process. This process deploys personnel from other regions to aid in the restoration across the PHI family of utilities. In all, PHI requested 3,700 personnel to help put customers back in service within PHI companies. This is the largest number of crews ever requested, and is only a portion of the crew support requested for the East Coast
“I want to thank our customers for their continued patience and support during this massive restoration effort,” said Vince Maione, Region President Atlantic City Electric. “We continue to work at full strength to restore power to all customers as soon as possible.”
Customers Asked to Report Power Outages:
Customer reported outages are vital to Atlantic City Electric’s restoration efforts. Customers are asked to report outages at www.atlanticcityelectric.com or by calling 1-800-833-7476 and following the prompts on the automated system. If reporting an emergency or another life-threatening situation such as downed wires, customers should immediately call 1-800-833-7476 and follow the appropriate prompts.
Atlantic City Electric also recommends, when reporting an outage, that customers request a call-back. Call-backs allow Atlantic City Electric to notify customers when work in their area is completed. Even when area work has been completed, not every customer may have service if further unrecognized damage exists on equipment directly serving a customer’s home. Customers responding to call-backs help the utility to locate outages that are specific to customers’ homes and still need to be addressed.
To keep up to date, customers are encouraged to visit www.atlanticcityelectric.com, follow us on Facebook and Twitter at ACElecConnect and download our mobile app at www.atlanticcityelectric.com/mobileapp.
Atlantic City Electric Encourages Safety Precautions:
After severe storms, Atlantic City Electric urges customers to take safety precautions. Our safety tips include:
• Stay away from downed wires. Call 1-800-833-7476 and follow the prompts to report a downed wire or an outage.
• Avoid crews working in the street. This will keep you and the crews safe, and allow them to work on restoring your power.
• Visit www.atlanticcityelectric.com for safety tips and follow the advice of your local emergency management officials.
• If you plan to use a portable generator, follow the manufacturer’s instructions and use only when necessary. Don’t overload it and turn it off at night, while you sleep and when you are away from home.
• Locate a portable generator in a well-ventilated area. Never run it inside, even in your garage, to avoid the potential hazard of carbon monoxide. Do not connect the generator directly into your home’s main fuse box or circuit panel.
• Protect food and refrigerated medicine with regular ice in an insulated cooler. If you are without power for more than two hours, refrigerated foods should be placed in a cooler.
• Turn off power to flood-prone basement appliances if it is safe to do so. However, if you have an electrically operated sump pump, you should not turn off the power in your basement.
Tune in to local news broadcasts for the latest weather and emergency information.