Chester County Waits For Power Under Fallen Trees, Downed Lines

CHESTER COUNTY, PA — Roads blocked by trees, power poles bent over, yards flooded and roadways under water made up the landscape today across Chester County, as more rain threatens to worsen flooding.

PECO reported on Thursday morning less than 10 percent of the Chseter County was still without power. But residents from municipalities across Chesco posted their frustrations on social media as they awaited restored power, receiving texts from PECO changing time estimates, and hearing reports of more rain on the way.

Phoenixville, Malvern, Paoli, and West Chester all showed dozens of outages Thursday on PECO's map, each outage representing multiple customers. PECO estimated under 17,000 customers were still without power at noon on Thursday.

Damage like that from the Isaias storm requires the removal of trees and possibly installation of new poles, transformers, or wires, PECO explained. "This requires multiple crews and can take several hours. With a large, destructive storm, those challenges are multiplied and can result in hundreds of different jobs to restore service to customers."

Pictures of damage and flooded yards, with questions about who had power and where filled online forums through the day. One Malvern resident whose freezer had no power used social media to offer a huge pan of frozen brisket to anyone who could use it, before it went bad. Others wondered if they could claim spoiled food as loss.

PECO explains that power restoration estimates change as workers arrive at damage sites and continuously assess damage. "We know our customers are relying on power restoration estimates to plan their schedules. We work to provide the best estimate we can when we initially assess the damage related to an outage. However, as repairs are made and any new damage is identified, we work to update the restoration times to be as accurate as possible," an PECO FAQs page says.