After severe Pittsburgh storms, Duquesne Light sets up base camp for crews

CBS News

07-05-2025

It has been a week since severe storms swept through Western Pennsylvania, leaving more than half a million homes without power.
More than 325,000 homes with Duquesne Light were without power, more than half of its customer base.
Duquesne Light responded to what was referred to as an unprecedented event with the largest emergency response crew it has ever sent out. More than 600 contractors were called in from 19 different states, three times the total amount from the previous record.
"A storm of this magnitude, we've never seen it before," said Joshua Copeland, Duquesne Light's general manager of troubleshooting and training. "Since I've been here, this was by far the largest storm we've had. It's almost double the size, so we were prepared for a large storm, but not quite one this magnitude. It was pretty surprising to us."
But Josh Ewing, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers No. 29, says this kind of response is something its workers are trained for.
"Each job is different," Ewing said. "Weather conditions change. Some guys are working in the rain, the extreme heat, the extreme cold. That's what these guys train for. That's why they go through a rigorous apprenticeship, and that's what gives them the pride in doing what they do."
To accommodate the large workforce of line workers coming in, Duquesne Light has set up a base camp on its Woods Run campus on the North Side. Part of those arrangements are single-occupancy trailers with beds and storage for line workers to sleep and store equipment and belongings. There are also bathroom stalls and shower units for bathing.
They are normally used for disaster relief, but they were used in this situation due to their availability in the area.
"Due to the magnitude of this storm, there were hotels that were out of power," said Copeland. "We couldn't get individual hotels for the amount of people we had coming on, so we had this emergency preparedness that we were able to get this on-site and get these individuals a place to stay safely."
"You've got to remember these guys are in a tough situation," Ewing said. "They're away from their families. Some of them drove hundreds of miles to be here to help this community. So the company does a great job of trying to give them proper lodging, proper places to bathe, food, drinks, whatever they need."
Perhaps making things more complicated was the arrival of more storms in the following days, threatening Duquesne Light's self-imposed date of May 6 to restore power to those who lost it a week before.
"We're trying to get all the customers restored by the end of today, but we're also running into the second event, and even the third event," Copeland said Tuesday. "We had another with a storm last night that took another couple thousand people out."
Officials say, despite the complications, they are still committed to restoring power to all Duquesne Light customers, and helping take care of all the little things will make it easier for the line workers to stay focused on that goal. But they're also asking customers to be patient with the work that remains.
"No one likes to be out of power," said Ewing. "That's a given. But most customers understand that these workers didn't ask for this. They didn't cause this. Our workers are just trying to get the lights on as quickly and safely as they can."
"We understand the frustration," said Copeland. "We're not putting that aside. We're taking it very seriously. With a storm of this magnitude, we have all of our available resources on it. We have outside resources on it, and our goal is to not just restore power to you, but to restore power safely and get you back to the normal."