The American Red Cross and some local emergency management agencies have opened several "warming stations" in Northeast Pennsylvania for residents who have no power to take a shower or recharge electronic devices.
Residents should bring their own toiletries and towels. The warming stations include the following:
- In Lackawanna County, the American Red Cross has warming stations today from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. at: Thornhurst Fire Department, River Road in Thornhurst; Chinchilla Fire Department, 113 Shady Lane Road, South Abington Township; Dalton Fire Department, 109 South Turnpike Road, Dalton; and Jefferson Fire Department, 405 Cortez Road, Jefferson Township.
- In Wyoming County, the American Red Cross has a warming station at Tunkhannock Area High School at 135 Tiger Drive in Tunkhannock, tonight from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
- In Wayne County, the county EMA has warming stations today and Thursday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Honesdale High School, 459 Terrace St., and at Wallenpapuck South School, 989 Main St., Newfoundland; at the Evergreen School, Hamlin Highway (Route 191) in Hamlin, today from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.; and at the YMCA in Honesdale, 105 Park St., weekdays from 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Meanwhile, in Monroe County, the American Red Cross and East Stroudsburg University have opened a "mega shelter" for local residents as well as displaced residents from New Jersey and New York. This shelter, at Koehler Fieldhouse arena, has 400 cots, supplies and food, and is expected to remain open at least until Friday.
Contact the writer: jlockwood@timesshamrock.com
In terms of the number of power outages, superstorm Sandy ranks in the top five storms for PPL Electric Utilities, a spokesman said.
"This is sizing up to be one of the top five storms in PPL history, as far as overall damage and number of customers out" in the utility's coverage area of 29 counties in central and eastern Pennsylvania, said PPL spokesman Rich Beasley.
PPL this week has had around 400,000 outages from the storm, which would rank it either third or fourth depending on a final count, he said.
Before Sandy, PPL's Top 5 storms were as follows:
1. Sept. 2003, Hurricane Isabel: 495,000 outages.
2. Aug. 2011, Hurricane Irene: 428,000 outages.
3. The Halloween snowstorm of 2011: 400,000 outages.
4. Sept. 1999, Hurricane Floyd: 282,000 outages.
5. Jan. 2005 snow/sleet/freezing rain: 231,000 outages.
"What we're looking at is three of the top five storms for us happened within the last two years," he said.
Contact the writer: jlockwood@timesshamrock.com