PECO crews in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, continue to restore electric customers to service as the Spring’s first strong wind and rainstorm knocked out service to more than 50,000 electric customers.

The storm began at 1 a.m. on May 12 as multiple lines of thunderstorms moved through the Greater Philadelphia region. The system brought strong winds with gusts nearly 40 mph. that caused many downed power wires, fallen tree limbs on aerial lines, and damaged pole-top fuses and circuit breakers.

As of 3 p.m. on May 12, about 9500 PECO customers remained without electric service mainly in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. Only several hundred customers remained off in Philadelphia County.

“We expect this storm restoration effort to continue through tonight and into tomorrow,” said Mike Innocenzo, PECO emergency response director. “Our crews are doing a good job of quickly returning customers to service, but because the high winds are continuing, our crews are getting new jobs as quickly as they complete the old ones. We expect most customers to be restored by midnight tonight, but we will have scattered outages that extend into Tuesday.”

PECO has company and contract crews on system and available for the remainder of the restoration effort.