596 PECO Customers Affected By Thursday's Outage In Ardmore

PECO officials are investigating the cause of Thursday's power outage and contained explosion that caused a manhole cover to injure a pedestrian at the Ardmore and Lancaster avenue intersection.

According to PECO spokesman Ben Armstrong, a total of 596 residential and commercial customers were affected by the outage that occurred at about 6 a.m.

Armstrong said in about an hour all but 67 customers had power restored.

The remaining 67 customers, Armstrong said, had power restored by 3:15 p.m.

"The outage was due to an issue with underground equipment," Armstrong said.

When asked about the pedestrian, Armstrong said PECO received reports of a manhole cover at the intersection coming dislodged.

Lower Merion Township officials said Thursday that a pedestrian was injured in the incident, with PECO officials telling the township a 50-year-old woman suffered a broken ankle. The township had no additionally information regarding the incident Friday.

Armstrong said manhole covers can become dislodged for various reasons and said PECO's investigation into the incident will hopefully reveal what caused the manhole cover to become dislodged.

The township reported the incident as a contained explosion in the manhole cover Thursday.

"Because of the incident, we had damage to underground equipment and cables," Armstrong said.

PECO crews removed and replaced the damaged cables with new cables and Armstrong said PECO plans to analyze the new cable to determine the cause of the outage.

As of Friday, PECO said it was unsure if the damaged equipment and cables caused the outage or if an outside factor contributed to the outage.

Armstrong said PECO uses various devices to isolate areas affected by power outages to locate customers without power and restore those customers' power quickly.

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