Greg Dudkin Letter to Employees

6/15/16
To all employees:
Today we are releasing the details of how one line crew got reassigned during power
restoration after the October 2011 snowstorm, delaying repairs for 1,326 customers for about
four hours.
This issue has been the subject of court filings and publicity over the past several years.
PPL reached a settlement in 2013 with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. We
corrected the issue and made a civil settlement payment of $60,000. As is standard practice,
confidentiality was part of the settlement. The news media challenged that confidentiality.
Recently, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in favor of the media, requiring the PUC to
release redacted versions of the documents without names and job titles.
I want to provide you with the details, so we can all learn from this situation as we work
to improve our service to customers.
Changing the assignment for this crew was a mistake. It was the result of a
misunderstanding between some of our employees, and it should not have happened. It meant
that we restored a smaller outage before a larger one, which is not our policy. We have already
taken steps to keep it from happening again.
We are a company of people. And people sometimes can have a lapse in judgment. Its
important that we learn from our mistakes.
Here are the details:

The storm left 388,318 of our customers without power. During restoration, Dave
Bonenberger, vice president-Distribution Operations, contacted the Hazleton storm room
inquiring about an outage in his neighborhood. The outage affected his house and 225 other
customers. He did not ask that a crew be reassigned. But supervisors in the storm room thought
that was what he meant.
Meanwhile, a repair crew had been working to repair an outage affecting 1,326 customers
in the Nesquehoning area. That crew had been assigned to the Nesquehoning job at 10:40 p.m.,
and then left that job at 11:44 p.m. for a required rest period. The next morning, the crew was
first assigned to repair the outage in Bonenbergers neighborhood in the Tamaqua area before
being sent back to the Nesquehoning job. This delay in returning to Nesquehoning meant that
power restoration there took four hours longer than it otherwise would have.
In a note today to Distribution Operations employees, Dave explains what happened and
takes accountability for the misunderstanding that led to the change in power restoration
assignment that was contrary to company policy.
Why did we previously want to keep these details from being released? Our investigation
determined that this was a misunderstanding that led to actions not consistent with our policy,
creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. We quickly took steps to prevent it from
happening again. At that point, we decided to work with the PUC on a settlement. Because
confidentiality was required by our settlement and because confidentiality is an important
component of the commissions investigations, we joined the PUC in defending it when it was
challenged in court.
Now that the court has ruled, providing these details is the right thing to do.

We have used what we learned from this situation to improve our storm restoration
process. Dave Bonenberger has proven himself to be an exceptional leader in emergency storm
restorations including Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the Lancaster Ice Storm in 2014 and other
storms. We have been recognized for how well we safely, efficiently and effectively repair storm
damage and turn the power back on for our customers.
Now that this court case is over and the details are released, my hope is that we can move
forward with a continued focus on our main objective improving our service to our customers.
Thank you for the work you do -- every day, year-round to help us achieve that goal.
-Greg

Statement from Dave Bonenberger

I regret that my actions led to a misunderstanding, and I especially regret that some of
our customers had a longer power outage as a result. PPLs employees are known for their
dedication and hard work in power restorations, and I would never want to do anything to tarnish
that reputation.
Dave Bonenberger
Vice President Distribution Operations
PPL Electric Utilities