BRIAR CREEK TWP. — Monday morning’s fatal tanker truck crash knocked out power to 1,288 PPL customers, and most of them were still without power as of the evening.

PPL was estimating it would take until midnight to restore power to the 1,032 who still didn’t have it as of 7:30 p.m., said spokeswoman Alana Roberts.

Electric company staff weren’t able to reach the downed wires until between 6 and 7 p.m., she said.

That’s because the truck was carrying a hazardous material — liquid fertilizer — that had to be pumped out before responders could disentangle it from the wires on Foundryville Road.

Once workers had access to the wires and realized how long it would take to make repairs, she said, PPL began calling the customers who had no electricity letting them know the estimated repair time and offering to reimburse them for ice and water.

The company also alerted the county emergency management agency, she said.

PPL’s online outage stopped showing the outage at some point during the day, leaving customers no way to get information for much of the afternoon.

Meanwhile, temperatures Monday afternoon reached the mid-90s.

That frustrated Neil Young, who lives on Knob Mountain Road and spent much of the day wondering if he should get a hotel room for the night. He and some neighbors have health conditions, he said.

“PPL has direct dial,” he said. “Just keep people informed. We all understand accidents happen.”

Roberts said the omission from the outage map was due to a computer glitch, and the company is looking into why that happened.

The accident left Christopher Miller, of Lancaster, dead. The 38 year-old's tanker truck skidded around a sharp curve of Foundryville Road and flipped into a ditch, officials say.

We'll have more details in Tuesday's Press Enterprise.