Fifty PECO employees, 16 bucket trucks, two line trucks, two fleet maintenance vehicles, 10 pick-up trucks and two sport utility vehicles will travel to southeastern Mississippi to rebuild electric infrastructure and restore electricity for Mississippi Power customers following the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina.

PECO crews will include 36 linemen and supporting safety, logistics, fleet and field personnel

Crews will depart following a safety briefing and coworker send off. Employees are expected to remain in the Gulf region for two weeks, at which time crews will be relieved by additional personnel if services are still needed.

It is expected to take PECO's caravan nearly 16 hours to travel the more than 1000 miles to the southeast portion of Mississippi. The caravan is scheduled to spend Saturday evening in Charlotte, North Carolina before arriving to assist Mississippi Power.

Once in Mississippi, PECO crews will join thousands of other utility workers from across the country, working under extremely harsh, unsanitary conditions rebuilding and repairing infrastructure to restore electricity to customers. During the height of damage, Mississippi Power reported that all of its 195,000 customers were without electricity. The company estimates that more than 70 percent of their infrastructure will need to be rebuilt or repaired.

Based in Philadelphia, PECO Energy is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation.