Met-Ed says more than 12,000 lost power in Berks as restoration work continues

Power restoration continued Saturday morning in Berks County with Met-Ed down to under 1,000 customers without service.

All total on Friday, about 12,000 Met-Ed customers lost service and the outage number continued to be a bouncing ball into the night as crews battled downed limbs and trees.

Gusts pounded the region from a storm centered off the East Coast most of Friday. The winds have subsided Saturday but there also pockets of heavy rain in the area.

The top wind gust recorded Friday at Reading Regional Airport, the official National Weather Service site in Berks, was 37 mph.

PPL Electric Utilities reported a smattering of outages remaining in its service area in western Berks.

The Met-Ed outages about 9:30 a.m. Saturday totaled 858 and were scattered across 35 municipalities.

The AccuWeather forecast is unchanged: A high in the mid-60s on Saturday with showers lingering.

Then Sunday, gradual clearing with a high near 60 degrees, and mostly sunny on Monday to open November with a high near 60 degrees, according to AccuWeather.

Sunny and chilly conditions are expected through the workweek with the morning lows flirting with the freezing mark on Thursday and Friday.

Met-Ed spokesman Todd L. Meyers added this in an emailed statement: “It will likely be until Sunday afternoon (tomorrow) until all customers have their electricity back. Remember, we work on outages affecting the largest number of customers first, and then work our way out to the smaller and single-count outages, which still may require time-consuming repairs to get the lights back on. Everyone is reminded to please stay well clear of downed wires brought down by tree limbs. They can look inert, but still be live and deadly. Stop, look and live.”

Source: Berkshire mont