PPL Electric Utilities said it expects to make substantial progress today in restoring power to customers who still have outages following last week’s storm.

The force of repair workers – already at 1,800 linemen, tree crews and damage assessors – continues to expand with the arrival of new crews from other utilities.

The target time to restore all customers who lost power in last week’s storm remains 11 p.m. Wednesday. Many customers are expected to be restored before then.

PPL said 15,264 customers remain without electricity, including 12 in Carbon County, 558 in Lehigh County, 5,074 in Monroe, 2 in Schuylkill and 335 in Northampton County.

“We continue to focus all of our efforts on restoring power to customers who remain without service following Winter Storm Riley,” said Stephanie Raymond, vice president, Distribution Operations. “We’re working around the clock, as quickly and safely as possible, to bring all customers back into service.

“We are tracking Winter Storm Quinn, which is predicted to hit our service area Wednesday. We will respond to any outages it causes,” Raymond added. “We will keep the current expanded staffing in our service area.”

About 239,000 customers have been restored since the start of the storm.

Customers receive updated restoration times when crews arrive to make repairs.

The best way to stay up to date on your outage is by signing up for PPL Alerts at www.pplelectric.com/alerts. Restoration progress can be followed though our outage center at pplelectric.com/outage.

Always stay away from any downed lines, keep kids and pets away from them and report fallen wires immediately by calling 1-800-DIAL-PPL.

If you have to run a generator, make sure you run it outdoors in a well-ventilated area — never indoors or in a garage.

Use flashlights, not candles, to reduce fire risk.

This storm ranks among the 10 most damaging in PPL’s service area.