High winds bring down trees, knock out power

Howling winds — with gusts reported to be as high as 45 to 55 mph — have left thousands of PPL customers without power.

The cyclonelike air pressure has resulted in trees being downed on various roadways, tow trails and other areas as a wind warning remains in effect until 6 p.m. today.

“We’ve already had many wind gusts up around 40; I do know in the Allentown area, they got wind gusts between 45 and 55,” Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, said. “I think during the nighttime hours tonight, the winds will gradually diminish.”

As of 9 a.m., Carol Obando-Derstine, PPL regional affairs director, said about 20,000 PPL customers were without power, “and that number is expected to grow as the day progresses and the wind’s speeds peak.”

According to the outage map, Obando-Derstine said there were 1,189 customers in Monroe County without power; 916 in Schuylkill County; and 628 in Carbon County.

“Given that peak winds have not yet occurred in our service territory, we expect the number of outages to continue increasing throughout the day,” Obando-Derstine said.

Obando-Derstine said that for customers who lost power on Sunday, they expect power to be restored to the majority of those customers by tonight.

“We have hundreds of workers and support personnel that will be working around the clock to get power restored,” she said. “We have also brought about 90 additional workers from Kentucky to help with the restoration work. Additional out of state assistance is being assembled.”

Obando-Derstine added, “Given the extent of the damage, we expect the restoration work to take multiple days.”

She said PPL asks that customers report their outage at www.pplelectric.com/outages or at 800-DIALPPL.

Customers should also set up and personalize PPL Alert to receive outage information by phone, email or text or all three, she said.

Obando-Derstine said to make sure cellphones and other personal devices are fully charged, and if you have to run a generator, make sure to run it outdoors in a well-ventilated area, never indoors or in a garage, and use flashlights, not candles, to reduce fire risk.

Use common sense

Kines cautioned that if there are any wires that are down, to not touch them and “use common sense.”

“There’s not much you can do, but certainly if you’re out and about, watch out for flying debris,” he said. “The good thing is there’s not any powdery snow to blow around; otherwise, it really would have been bad.”

Kines said such high wind speeds are far from the norm.

“Certainly these winds are unusual, (though) they have occurred in the past,” he said. “But when you start talking wind speeds of 45 to 55 mph, that’s unusual, and can be destructive as well.”

Kines said power outages aren’t only worrisome for homeowners, but also for the crews responsible for restoring power.

“One of the problems the crews have when they go to repair these power outages is it becomes dangerous for them as well,” he said. “In some instances, they’ve got to wait for the winds to diminish some before they can get out there.”

Kines said the wind will still be blowing on Tuesday, but it “won’t be nearly as strong or nearly as destructive as today’s winds,” with high temperatures expected to be in the lower 30s.

He said the clouds come back in on Wednesday, and it isn’t totally out of the question that the area could see a little bit of snow toward evening, though any accumulating snow will likely be north of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area.

Kines said another weather system could affect the area Thursday night or Friday, and could be either in the form of rain or snow.

“It doesn’t look like a big storm, but is probably a warmer system than the one that’s going to affect us Wednesday night,” he said.

By Thursday, he said temperatures should be back up around the lower 40s. Friday could see a threat of a little bit of rain or snow, with temperatures near 40, Kines said. On Saturday, he said there’s a chance for some precipitation, though.

“I suspect if there is any heavy precipitation that gets in here, that it would be in the form of rain and not snow.”