As we enter September, a month dedicated to preparedness, it’s a good time to review how we can best protect ourselves, our loved ones and our community from unexpected emergencies. National Preparedness Month is a reminder that disasters can strike at any time, and being prepared can make all the difference.

While we do many things throughout the year to remain prepared for storms and emergencies, we encourage you to do the same. Here’s how you can get ready, stay connected, and stay safe—before, during, and after a storm:

Get prepared:

• Create an emergency plan and discuss what your family would do in different scenarios, such as a power outage, sever weather or other disasters. Identify a meeting place, ensure everyone knows how to contact each other, and practice your plan regularly.
• Prepare an emergency kit with food, water, medication, flashlights and pet supplies.
• Charge your phones and devices.
• Make alternate plans if you have a medical condition which requires electricity.
• Purchase power strips with lightning arresters or surge protectors for your appliances and electronics.
• Consider installing lightning rods on your property.

Stay connected:

• Sign up for local emergency alerts and stay tuned to the weather forecast.
• Report power outages online at pplelectric.com or text “Outage” to TXTPPL (898775).
• Sign up for alerts to stay connected and receive outage updates at pplelectric.com/alerts.
• Check the status of an outage and estimated restoration times online at pplelectric.com/outage.
• Follow us on social media, where we will post the latest storm and restoration updates.

Stay safe during and after storms:

• Stay away from utility poles and metal conductors.
• If you encounter a downed wire at any time, assume it’s energized and stay away. If you see one, report it immediately to PPL Electric.
• Electric and plumbing equipment may carry lightning current. Avoid using any appliances or electronics plugged into an electrical outlet.
• If using a portable generator during a power outage, never operate the generator in an enclosed area, like a garage, where deadly carbon monoxide fumes could accumulate.
• Remember that candles can start fires. Always use flashlights instead.
• If you lose power, turn off any appliances that were on when the power went off.
• For your safety and ours, please keep a safe distance from our crews.

How we prepare

At PPL Electric Utilities, we do many things throughout the year to remain prepared for storms and emergencies. That includes the work we do to strengthen and modernize our energy grid to prevent power outages from happening when outage-causing storms strike.

We also monitor the health of the electric system through helicopter and drone inspections, and we use sensors and infrared technology to make upgrades and repairs.

And we’ve developed industry-leading smart grid technology that reduces the number of customers affected by outages and automatically reroutes power around trouble spots. Since 2015, approximately 2 million outages have been avoided due to smart grid technology. And since trees are the leading cause of outages during storms, trees and vegetation are trimmed along thousands of miles of power lines each year.

Other reliability improvements include:

• Upgrading power lines and poles with stronger, more storm-resistant materials across our distribution and transmission systems.
• Adding more automated sensors for improved fault isolation and restoration.
• Deploying predictive sensors to identify issues before outages occur.
• Installing avian guards and lightning protection along transmission lines.

Storm preparation and response
We also monitor weather forecasts daily and look days ahead to begin preparing and mobilizing resources when severe weather is expected. As storms approach, we activate our storm teams with additional personnel in the field, and at control centers and on our customer service staff across the 29-county service territory. We may implement 16-hour shifts for around-the-clock coverage. And we dispatch crews and resources to respond as safely and quickly as possible to any outages that may occur.

When storms cause outages, an established restoration process is followed to get all customers back in service as safely and quickly as possible. While every customer is a priority, critical systems like hospitals come first. After the most critical systems are restored, workers move on to repairing lines that will bring back electricity for the largest number of customers and then smaller neighborhoods, individual homes and businesses.