Severe weather cuts power to thousands across Pennsylvania counties

Philadelphia and surrounding counties in Pennsylvania were hit by widespread power outages on Thursday night June 19, as severe weather moved across the region. The outages impacted thousands of residents, particularly in Bucks, Delaware, Montgomery, and Chester counties.

The utility company PECO who has been Powering Greater Philadelphia for 140 years confirmed that high winds and heavy rain were the main causes of the disruption. Trees and branches fell onto power lines in several areas, knocking out electricity for large sections of the population.

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According to PECO’s outage map, Bucks County was among the hardest hit, with over 71,000 customers without power. The county has around 230,000 customers, which means nearly 31 per cent of them were affected. There were over 400 outage incidents reported in the area.

Delaware County saw more than 70,000 customers affected, out of a total of nearly 240,000. In Montgomery County, nearly 68,000 customers were without power.
Chester County also experienced significant disruption, with around 43,800 customers impacted. Philadelphia reported over 20,000 outages, although this affected less than 5 per cent of its much larger population of over 685,000 customers.
Even York County, which saw far fewer outages than other regions, had more than 200 customers without power.
In a X-post by PECO, it said, “Always stay clear of fallen trees and downed or low-hanging power lines—especially near metal fences. Fallen trees can also hide downed power lines—stay far back and never touch or move debris near wires.” It has also urged users to report and check outages at http://peco.com/outages.