Delmarva Power updates public on outages, safety measures

Be leery of downed power lines suggested Delmarva Power president Gary Stockbridge on Monday, Oct. 29. “Call the company and don't go near it,” he said. “Assume the worst and call us so we can attend to it.”

He explained that currently there are about 7000 Maryland customers and about 3000 Delaware customers affected by power outages at this point, with numbers expected to build. They have reached out for an additional 4000 human resources across the country and into Canada and have 1500 committed should the need arise. Those crews will be stationed upstate at the Fisker plant so they can easily be mobilized when it is safe to do so and he said he had pockets of other workers stationed around their coverage area as well. He said he does expect restoration efforts to go over a week in length and added that that is not something “customers have seen in a while.”

“Based on the wind and storm projections, it is likely to be over a week before we get all the customers back in,” he said, adding that public health and large transmission lines were a top priority and small outages and individual customer were after that.

He still urged anyone with outages to call their toll-free numbers to report it at (800) 898-8045. customers looking for estimated time of restoration online might not be able to get to it because they have turned off that automation because of uncertainty in the storm's path and duration. There are apps to download and there is information online at www.delmarva.com for those that have power to keep abreast of any information coming from the power company.