It's hard to be away from home just before the holiday season. But the roughly 50 PECO and Henkels & McCoy employees from the Philadelphia area who are helping bring back electric service to a small town in Massachusetts following a devastating Dec. 11 ice storm are being called "heroes."

The ice storm left 1.4 million electric customers without electric service across New England. More than a week later, thousands remained without electric for the necessities of home and work. The storm recovery essentially involves completely rebuilding the utility infrastructure, said Tom Meissner, chief operating officer of Unitil, an electric and gas utility that serves 100,000 across three states. Unitil is the parent company for Fitchburg Electric & Gas, the host utility that requested PECO assistance last week.

"Everybody loves PECO's crews. In one of our towns in Massachusetts, they are heroes," Meissner said in a telephone interview Friday morning. He praised the PECO employees as "top notch professionals"and noted their focus on safety and customers, effective deployment of work, strong use of processes and procedures, and tireless work ethic.

"From the day they arrived a week ago, they've remained in the same town the entire time, and they are the only utility workers in this town. It was ground zero for the devastation. It doesn't get any worse than Ashby," said Meissner, speaking of the community of about 1,300.

PECO and the Henkels & McCoy crews are among 66 utility crews working for Unitil in Massachusetts. More than 1,000 utility crews from as far away as Ohio and Tennessee are assisting the ice storm recovery efforts across Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, Meissner said. The PECO crews are expected to return Tuesday, December 23, two days before Christmas. It is the third time this year PECO operations personnel have traveled away from home to help another utility following severe storms.

While the men and women are away, they generally work 12 to 16 hour shifts and sleep in sleeping bags at local hotels. Meissner said 100 percent of Unitil's customers originally lost service, so hotels may only have generators. The most severe icing, he said, occurred in Fitchburg and points north. The PECO employees -- line mechanics, supervisors, safety professionals, and support personnel -- left Pennsylvania early Saturday morning, Dec. 13.

In Ashby, where PECO crews are working, more than 100 poles fell due to the heavy icing on power lines and trees. Downed utility poles are visible on every street. The area was expected to get up to a foot of snow again today with more in the weather forecast for Sunday too. Meissner said Ashby residents "appreciate how bad it was and everyone has pitched in to help one another and the visiting utility crews."

"New Englanders are known for being tough but everyone's patience is running out. We are so thankful for the help we are getting," said Meissner, who has personally visited with all of the PECO personnel during the past week. "The way they have worked, almost non-stop, has just been wonderful and very impressive."

Most of the utility's workers have not been home in more than a week. Due to public pressure to return to normal, Unitil's emergency operations center and other facilities are even getting police protection. Remarkably, he said, the local utility staff who are working around-the-clock are keeping their spirits up and sense of humor "amidst the craziness."