FLORIDA, September 13, 2017 - Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) has restored more than 350,000 outages under hurricane conditions. Lengthy outages are expected as Irma remains a threat to millions throughout Florida.
“Despite Irma's exceedingly high winds, tornadic activity, storm surge and severe flooding, FPL has restored power to hundreds of thousands of customers, due largely to automation along its energy grid,” said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL. “We expect the west coast to be the hardest-hit area, requiring an extensive rebuild of our energy grid. As a result, our west coast customers will likely be without power for a much longer period of time.”
FPL anticipates that customers will likely experience more than one outage throughout the duration of the storm, particularly as Irma’s speed has slowed. The utility’s workforce of approximately 17,000 employees is restoring power in between bands of severe weather where conditions permit. Thorough damage assessments are to be done as soon as it is safe to work.
“We assembled the largest pre-storm restoration workforce in our nation’s history, but this will likely be a recovery effort of historic proportions, extending for weeks. You have my personal commitment that we will continue to work around the clock until every customer’s electricity is back on,” Silagy said.
FPL will begin restoring power in multiple locations and follow an overall plan that calls for restoring power to the largest number of customers, first by repairing any power plants and power lines and then moving on to critical facilities, such as hospitals, police and fire stations, communication facilities, water treatment plants, transportation providers and shelters.
Start your day with the Agri-Pulse Daily Harvest Email. Sign up for a four-week free trial by clicking here!
#30
