The widespread power outages from last Thursday's storm affected 327,000 PECO customers, making it one of the 20 worst storms in PECO's history.
Now the power is back on, but the forecast predicts more thunderstorms for the next week, and IBEW Local Union 614 president Larry Anastasi isn't convinced that PECO is prepared; in fact, he thinks quite the opposite.
"You never know how bad a storm's going to be, right? But this is supposed to be a professional utility," Anastasi told Delco Now. "[PECO] management says openly, 'every storm is the first storm.' It's embarrassing that someone would ever say that. They say that consistently. There's no accountability at that level."
Anastasi says that the Philadelphia Electric Company in its original iteration was a well-oiled machine, but when Exelon Corporation purchased PECO in 2000, they "systematically took over, ate Philadelphia Electric, and destroyed their systems."
"They didn't hire people from within. They used to have to come from the field, used to work in the field for many years to be qualified to be in management. Now, you don't have to be," Anastasi said. "So there's no one left that knows the work. They transfer them every couple of years, so they never face the poor decisions, or they're not invested in the decisions that they make. Every year it gets worse and worse."
IBEW Local 614, chartered in 2005, represents members employed by PECO Energy, Constellation Energy Generation, Vicinity Energy and Penske. The union represents over 1400 PECO workers who are on the front lines during and after severe storms, repairing the damage and restoring power as quickly as possible.
Anastasi put out a statement Tuesday reprimanding PECO for not investing in their workers and their equipment during the power restoration process. He says his objective with that statement was to point out a pattern of mismanagement.
"Someone is going to get killed. They're not investing in the workers, or the systems that need it. Their investment is, they buy advertising," Anastasi said.
"That's where the rate payer's money goes. They pay for corporate bonuses. They pay for contractors that cost three times more than we do. They pay for box seats at the Eagles and the Phillies and the Sixers... Our fleet is completely mismanaged. The trucks, we don't have the equipment that we need, and every year it gets worse.
"So when storms like this happen, there's a lot of pressure on our workers, the [IBEW Local] 614 members, and the customers get increasingly angry and frustrated. Because it's so significant, and because this is a pattern and someone is going to get hurt or die, I think someone needs to speak up."
Tom Brubaker, the Senior Manager of Communications at PECO, told Delco Now that PECO is prepared for the upcoming week of thunderstorms.
"If we do see a storm coming in that starts to impact a lot of customers, we'll activate our emergency operations center again, and we'll be back up and running to make sure that we get all of our customers restored as quickly and safely as possible," Brubaker said.
"And as you know, we work those 24/7 shifts, 24 hours, seven day a week shifts until we get everybody back on. So it's an all-out, all hands on deck effort when we do have these severe storms."
The condition of PECO's infrastructure has come into question multiple times over the last two months. Two separate electrical fires in Upper Chichester and Southwest Philly sent seven people to the hospital. Both fires were caused at least in part by decaying utility pole crossarms.
Anastasi says that when storms like last Thursday's hit, older equipment that hasn't been replaced is his main concern.
"They're supposed to repair the infrastructure with that money [from the state] and it doesn't happen. And there's proof over the last month and a half. No act of God, no pole hits, stuff just fails," he said.
"When storms like this hit, and you have an incredibly old infrastructure that was never replaced, the damage is worse."
Brubaker noted that PECO invests heavily in preparing their infrastructure for severe storms.
"We invest a lot of money to make sure that the infrastructure is ready to go, but there are those situations where storms will bring down trees, tree branches," Brubaker said. "About 40% of all our outages are driven by vegetation, which is tree branches and trees coming down and taking down our wires."
In Tuesday's statement, Anastasi said that lineworkers often waited hours to receive assignments in the wake of last Thursday's storm, and that multiple teams were often unknowingly dispatched to the same circuit. That can potentially create major safety hazards, especially if one team energizes a power line while the other team is still working on it.
Union members' lives are at risk during these power restoration processes. Anastasi says that his members are his motivation.
"The people that do this work are incredible people, and they sacrifice a lot," Anastasi said. "They miss their families, they miss anniversaries. It's incredibly dangerous what they do, and they're not being invested in from the company. They're heroes, and they are the people that I'm fighting for."
The power outages from last Thursday's storm have all since been restored, but Brubaker wants PECO customers to know what to do and to be prepared in the event of more outages.
"We want our customers to know that they need to stay away from any live wires, and if they do have an outage, to report it to us, either on our mobile app or on our website at PECO.com/outages," Brubaker said.
Looking ahead to the forecast for this week, Anastasi is worried about the state of PECO's infrastructure, about the well-being of his members, and about the well-being of the public.
"It looks like now you're going to see another storm come, right? And stuff that was just put up could be falling back down in a couple days," Anastasi said.
"Which is why it's important to have a very well-hardened infrastructure, capable management that know the work, and a system by which you hire, train and retain police. Because electricity is as foundational as it gets.
"I mean, this isn't a company, this is a kingdom, right? There's 1.8 million customers, they get 1.8 million checks every month. They have the money to do it. They're just not choosing to do it."
