Pepco Ups the Number of Personnel Called in for Hurricane Sandy

In the face of recent storm projections for Hurricane Sandy, Pepco has increased the size of its call for help with Maryland and Washington, DC.

Originally, the power company asked utilities in the Southeast and Midwest to pitch in with an additional 2,500 line personnel and 400 tree personnel. The company has increased those requests to 3,000 and 600 more workers respectively.

It is a preemptive move, as Pepco will wait for safe conditions before sending personnel out in the storm. Once the wind subsides, though, Pepco plans to dispatch them, said Bob Hainey, Pepco spokesman.

"It's very dangerous and that's why we take a lot of safety precautions," Hainey said. "You can't send someone out and put them up in a bucket truck if you have high winds."

This means it could take one, two or even more days for Pepco to send out crew, which accentuates the importance of pre-storm preparations.

Once it deems conditions safe, Pepco plans to make repairs that restore the largest numbers of customers first. The following is its general priority list: 

• Downed live wires or potentially life-threatening situations and public health and safety facilities without power.

• Transmission lines serving thousands of customers.

• Substation equipment.

• Main distribution lines serving large numbers of customers.

• Secondary lines serving neighborhoods.

• Service lines to individual homes and businesses.

Customers who wish to contact Pepco have the following options:

Call 1-877-PEPCO-62 (1-877-737-2662) to report downed wires and life-threatening situations.

To report an outage, call 1-877-PEPCO-62 (1-877-737-2662) or report through Pepco's mobile app at its website.