READING, Pa., Nov. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 2,000 workers from Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), other FirstEnergy utilities, mutual assistance utilities and contractors are completing restoration work following Hurricane Sandy, which tore through the company's 15-county Pennsylvania service area early last week.  Met-Ed has restored service to nearly all of its more than 270,000 customers affected by the storm.

Significant damage from high winds, downed trees and branches was the major cause of outages for Met-Ed customers.  Met-Ed used three staging sites in Nazareth, Nockamixon State Park and at the Oley Fairgrounds to help coordinate and speed restoration. 

"Our crews worked as quickly and safely as possible through our restoration plan to return service to our customers," said Mike Doran, Met-Ed regional president.  "Most importantly, we completed that work safely.  I can't thank our customers enough for their patience as we worked to recover from this historic storm; we are well aware of the inconvenience a power outage causes.

"In many respects, Sandy was a much more damaging storm than Irene or the 2011 October snowstorm.  As an example, during this past week our crews replaced more than twice as many poles, cross arms, and transformers as we did following Irene.  Sandy was a historic storm for Met-Ed and its customers," Doran added.

As restoration work winds down, Met-Ed urges any customer who has not yet reported their outage to do so.  FirstEnergy customer call centers are fully staffed.  To report an outage or a downed line, Met-Ed customers should call 1-888-LIGHTSS (1-888-544-4877). 

Met-Ed serves approximately 550,000 customers in 15 Pennsylvania counties.

FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence.  Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and West Virginia.  Its generation subsidiaries control more than 20,000 megawatts of capacity from a diversified mix of scrubbed coal, non-emitting nuclear, natural gas, hydro, pumped-storage hydro and other renewables.  Follow FirstEnergy on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp.

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SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.