Power Restored to Lehigh County Senior Building in Emmaus

In a real-life example of the saying, “all’s well that ends well,” electric power was restored to the Lehigh County Housing Authority senior citizens building at 333 Ridge Street in Emmaus at 3:10 p.m. today, ending a 12-hour power outage, according to Sgt. Chuck Palmer, Emmaus chief of police.

The police department, he says, was notified of a partial power outage in the residential high rise at the corners of Third and Ridge streets at about 3:30 a.m. PPL and the Lehigh County Housing Authority were alerted at that time.

At approximately 9 a.m. today, Palmer says, the department was advised by PPL that the electrical outage had been traced to an underground service line, and the repair, which ultimately caused the entire building to lose power, would take quite some time.

At that point, emergency personnel, including Emmaus police officers and members of the Emmaus ambulance corps went door-to-door in the building alerting residents of the situation, according to Palmer.

Because of the warm weather, a generator was set up in a first-floor common room to run air-conditioning and a refrigerator. Residents were encouraged to come to the first floor and bring any medication that needed to be refrigerated, Palmer says.

Plans were put in place to evacuate the residents using LANTA buses, Palmer says, and a local hotel was put on standby, but that didn’t prove necessary since PPL was able to complete the repair and restore power to the building.