Last updated on June 24, 7:25 a.m.
ARDMORE, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Temperatures are expected to flirt with triple digits through at least Wednesday. Meanwhile, thousands of homes and businesses in the Philadelphia region are still without power from last week’s severe thunderstorms.
PECO utility crews worked through the weekend and made significant progress in restoring power, but there were still about 7,000 customers without service as of 8 a.m. Monday.
The thunderstorms knocked down power lines and uprooted thick trees throughout the region. A PECO spokesperson said the straight-line winds were “tornado-like.”
During the height of the outages Thursday evening, 327,000 customers were affected, the utility company said.
Most of those still without power Monday morning were in Delaware and Montgomery counties, and the timing could not be worse.
“Today is supposed to be record heat, and I have little faith that the power is coming on today,” said Joe Wilson, of Wynnewood. “The main frustration, besides not having electricity, is really that PECO has not done a good job of communicating. I think that would have really helped people in the neighborhood, even if we were losing power for this length of time, if there was some communication telling us what is going on.”
“We came home after being away for a week and our power’s out,” said Christine, who was sitting outside having breakfast at Suburban Square in Ardmore.
Her children participate in sports and have to spend time outdoors this week, so she hopes their power goes back on soon.
“They have tournaments this week, so it’s gonna be tough for them outside in 100-degree heat,” she said.
Philadelphia has declared a heat health emergency, in effect now through Wednesday night.
PECO said its crews are working around the clock to restore service to every customer, hopefully by the end of the day Monday. Crews from nine other states are helping them in the restoration process.
However, on Tuesday evening, about 6,000 customers were still without power, mainly in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties.
PECO assured those remaining customers would have power by Tuesday afternoon. Roughly 13% of them haven't had power since the Thursday thunderstorms, while others lost power in the days that followed, as more trees fell and other issues popped up.