Each year, approximately 40 million lightning strikes hit the ground in the United States and cause approximately six to 15 deaths in Pennsylvania, according to the National Weather Service.
While being struck by lightning is rare, it’s better to protect yourself and stay out of harm’s way when thunder and lightning are approaching. The general rule of thumb: when thunder roars, go indoors.
Electrical Safety Foundation International offers some other lightning safety tips:
When you see lightning, count until you hear thunder. If that time is 30 seconds or less, the thunderstorm is within 6 miles of you and is dangerous. Immediately seek shelter.
Do not touch concrete surfaces, including those in a basement or garage. Lightning can travel through the metal wires in concrete walls and flooring.
Stay offcorded phones and plugged-in electronics.
Avoid plumbing and water, including bathing or doing laundry.
Never seek shelter under trees, poles or other tall structures,as they are more likely to be struck by lightning.
Here’s what you can do to protect your property:
Unplug appliances and other electrical items, such as computers and televisions, to prevent damage from lightning strike surges.
Surge protectioncan help prevent damage to your electronics. There are two types of surge protection:
Point-of-use surge protection – protects items directly plugged into the device from most electrical surges.
Whole home surge protection – located at your main electrical panel or base of the electric meter. This device provides protection for your entire electrical system.
If there’s one thing Meghan Fonda has learned as part of her job at PPL Electric Utilities, it’s to be prepared for the unexpected every day.
It’s practically part of her job description.
As an emergency planning supervisor for the Emergency Preparedness department, Fonda is responsible for helping to keep employees prepared for any emergency or storm that may occur in the utility’s 29-county Pennsylvania service area. She also helps prepare her co-workers for a safe and swift response when power outages occur.
“My job is all about making things better for our 1.5 million customers,” said Fonda, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from Florida State University. “It’s all about being able to restore power in a safe and timely manner when our customers experience outages. Each day, I’m making sure we’re prepared.”
Fonda, in her fifth year at PPL Electric, has a wide range of responsibilities, from making sure employees are familiar with their storm response roles and keeping them up to date on training to maintaining procedures and relationships with companies that provide assistance when PPL Electric needs to supplement its workforce to help restore power when severe storms strike. She also keeps in close contact with emergency management organizations.
Fonda is one of hundreds of employees who have an emergency/storm response role in addition to their normal job. We always have a team of employees on call to respond at a moment’s notice when outages occur. That includes engineers, lineworkers, damage assessors, environmental staff and logistical personnel.
When storms and storm damage are imminent, we activate storm teams with additional personnel in the field, control centers and customer service centers across our 29-county service territory. When we activate these storm and emergency response teams, their priority is to assist with our storm restoration work.
We participate in training exercises each month throughout the year to help ensure our employees are well versed in their emergency response roles. That regular training includes drills that help us stay familiar with what we need to do in cases of storm-caused outages, but also other emergencies, such as wildfires.
We also have staff closely monitoring weather forecasts and consulting with meteorologists to ensure we’re well prepared for any storm activity that may cause damage to our power delivery system.
“I really do like the emergency response aspect,” Fonda said. “It’s rewarding to know that the work we’re doing each day is benefitting our customers in some way. And whatever issue comes our way, we’ll be as prepared as we can be to meet it head on.”
For more about how you can prepare for storms, check out this video. And for more about how we respond to power outages, click here.
Do you know what to do if you’re involved in a vehicle crash involving power lines, or if you come across downed wires on the road?
PPL Electric Utilities wants to make sure you’re prepared for those scenarios and is now offering free electrical safety resources for drivers. Our new website – pplelectric.com/DriverSafety – provides tips, infographics and free teaching kits for instructors who teach young drivers. We’re also sending information to driver education teachers at schools across our 29-county service territory about how to order free instructional guides.
“The safety of our customers and our employees is our number one priority, and driving is an activity that most of us do every day,” said Doug Haupt, manager-Public Safety. “This is important information for everyone to have to help keep them safe when they are in or near an accident or downed wires.”
The website offers instructions for what to do when crashing into a utility pole, when you come across fallen power lines and how to do the “shuffle” if you need to get away from downed power lines. There is also a guide to teach power line safety in under 10 minutes.
We are also offering a free instructional kit with 20 power line safety cards for drivers brochures, 20 glove box cards and an instructional guide, all of which can be ordered here.
We encourage our customers to take advantage of these free resources.
And remember to call 911 and PPL Electric Utilities at 1‑800‑342‑5775 (1‑800‑DIAL‑PPL) immediately to report downed wires.
The arrival of the summer months brings about the inevitable threat of severe rain, wind and lightning, and those summer storms can cause power outages.
The work we do year-round – from upgrading and strengthening the equipment on our electric delivery system to trimming trees near our power lines to reduce the likelihood of tree and limb-caused outages – is designed to help ensure we provide you with the safest, most reliable power possible.
And the work we’re doing is making a difference.
In 2025, we’ve seen a 14% decrease in tree-related power outages and a 22% decrease in the total number of minutes customers are without power when compared to the same time last year.
Despite those efforts, severe storms can still cause power outages, so we want our customers to always be prepared. There are some simple, but important steps to take to stay safe and prepared. Here’s what you can do:
Before storms
Have an emergency kit with food, water, medication and any pet supplies you may need in any outage or emergency at any time of the year. Store it in an airtight container.
Make sure to have batteries and battery-operated flashlights readily available.
If you have medical equipment that requires power, have a backup location to go to if you lose power.
Sign up for PPL Alerts at pplelectric.com/alerts to make sure you receive power restoration updates when outages occur.
Charge your phones and other devices when severe storms are imminent.
During storms
If you lose power, please report your outage online at pplelectric.com/outage or text “Outage” to TXTPPL (898775).
Remember that candles can start fires. If you lose power, use flashlights instead.
If you encounter a downed wire at any time, assume it’s energized and stay away.
If you lose power and are using a portable generator, never operate the generator in an enclosed area, like a garage, where deadly carbon monoxide fumes could accumulate.
If you lose power, it’s a good idea to disconnect appliances and electronics during the outage to eliminate the risk of damage.
Avoid opening your refrigerator and freezer as much as possible.
Do not use ovens or ranges to heat your home.
Unplug sensitive home electronics. Turn off ovens and space heaters that may have been on when the outage occurred.
During extended outages, check with your local government about temporary shelters.
For more information on staying safe during storms and general electrical safety, visit pplelectric.com/OutageSafety.
Many of the electronic devices we use every day – phones, laptops, power tools, electric bikes and toothbrushes – rely on lithium-ion batteries. If you use any of these battery-powered items, you will want to make sure you know the signs that the battery could be faulty or failing. Following are signs that the Electrical Safety Foundation says could mean there is something wrong with a lithium-ion battery:
The battery color changes.
A “sweet” electrical burning smell is emitted from the battery.
The battery is making noises or leaking fluid.
The shape of the battery device has changed.
There is smoke coming from the battery.
If you detect a problem with a battery and it’s safe to do so, move it away from any buildings and, if possible, place it in a fireproof container.
If a battery fire occurs, evacuate the area. Damaged batteries may explode. Also, alert others about any battery fires and call 911 for help.
