How power companies are preparing for strong winds in Western Pennsylvania Tuesday [Video]

Even though this is the week of Thanksgiving, West Penn Power tells Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek that crews will be working as they normally do on Tuesday. They’re fully staffed and ready to go, ready for a storm bringing high winds, rain, and potential freezing rain to the mountain ridge communities.

If West Penn Power has to enter storm mode, those crews are ready to work long hours.

“If this materializes and we’re having a lot of outages, we can hold them throughout the day and get into what we call our storm mode, where our crews are working 16 hours on, with 8 hours of rest until the last customer is back on,” said spokesman Todd Myers.

Unlike treating roads for snow storms, the power companies can’t really prepare for a specific storm. But they work all summer — trimming trees and other plants around and above power poles …