FPL sends dozens of workers to Puerto Rico
Florida Power & Light Co. on Monday flew 140 line workers to help reconnect power in Puerto Rico, three months after hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the island and wiped out its power.
The utility, which provides service to more than half of Florida, was asked by Puerto Rico’s electric authority to help it complete the restoration, said FPL spokesman Bill Orlove.
The island’s power outage has been the longest in American history, leaving residents not only in the dark, but also without clean water.
FPL participates in a mutual assistance program where utilities send crews and equipment to assist when grids have been damaged due to disaster.
Last month, FPL sent 100 company bucket trucks and electric equipment on three barges from the Port of Fort Pierce to Puerto Rico. In November, FPL delivered 1,000 power line poles to the island.
FPL line workers are joining a crew already on the ground helping restore service to one of seven regions on the island, Orlove said. There are seven “incident management teams” from U.S. electric power companies working there now.
At year’s end, with half the island still without power, Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló, appealed to U.S. utility companies to send 1,500 workers to speed up electricity recovery efforts, according to news reports.
With so many FPL customers and employees having strong ties to Puerto Rico, FPL said in a news release that it “feels a responsibility to help get the lights back on and return a sense of normalcy to the island.”
After Hurricane Irma entered Florida on Sept. 10, it took FPL 10 days to complete restoration to 9 million people, or 90 percent of its service territory that lost power in the storm, including 2.5 million homes and businesses in South Florida. Power was restored with the help of utility crews from 30 states and Canada.