READING, Pa., Nov. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Crews from Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed) and other FirstEnergy (NYSE: FE) utilities continue making progress to restore service to customers who experienced outages caused by the heavy, wet snow that covered its 13-county Pennsylvania service area this past weekend. As of 11 a.m. today, the company has restored service to more than 220,000 customers, with about 50,000 still without power.

The counties most affected by the snowstorm include York, Adams, Cumberland, Berks, Bucks, Lebanon, Northampton, Monroe, Chester and Lehigh. Downed trees and branches and impassable roads have hampered restoration efforts.

"Our crews have made significant progress on our restoration efforts during the past 24 hours. We continue to believe that 95 percent of our customers will be restored by Friday, with the remainder restored through the upcoming weekend," said Dave Karafa, Met-Ed regional president. "All of our line, support and forestry personnel are working around the clock to restore service and will continue to do so until the last customer has service restored. In addition, we are utilizing crews from our FirstEnergy sister companies and contractors to assist our restoration efforts.

"We understand the inconvenience a power outage causes and we want to thank our customers for their patience as we work to restore service. In addition, we'd like to remind our customers to remain clear of our workers in the field - many work areas contain hazards and could be dangerous," Karafa adds.

Information about Met-Ed's restoration efforts is being shared with local officials and customers as soon as it is available.

For updated information on the company's restoration efforts, current outages, FirstEnergy's storm restoration process and tips for staying safe, go to www.firstenergycorp.com. Met-Ed will also provide updates via Twitter on @Met_Ed.

FirstEnergy customer call centers are fully staffed. To report an outage or a downed line, Met-Ed customers should call 1-888-LIGHTSS (1-888-544-4877).

Met-Ed serves approximately 560,000 customers in 13 Pennsylvania counties.

FirstEnergy is a diversified energy company dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies comprise the nation's largest investor-owned electric system. Its diverse generating fleet features non-emitting nuclear, scrubbed baseload coal, natural gas, and pumped-storage hydro and other renewables, and has a total generating capacity of nearly 23,000 megawatts.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.