Don’t call FPL; restoration will take days, CEO says

RIVIERA BEACH – Now that Hurricane Irma has moved on, everybody wants to know: When will my power come back?

Florida Power & Light Co. restored power to more than 1 million customers after the storm, but it will be “days” before the electric utility can give customers an estimate of when all of the tri-county region’s power will be restored, the company said Monday.

Nearly 2 million homes and businesses in South Florida awoke Monday without power after Hurricane Irma. Priority institutions such as hospitals, police and fire departments, supermarkets and gas stations had to make do with generators or not operate at all.

At home, many South Floridians were left to cope with stairwells instead of elevators, cold showers instead of hot ones and life after dark by flashlight.

FPL CEO Eric Silagy, de-

clared at a news conference that power restoration estimates will be made first by county and in coming weeks, by individual addresses on FPL.com.

“Until we have a better assessment where the damage is, we won’t be able to tell,” he said.

The Juno Beach-based electric utility is telling customers who call that they are only taking reports about downed power lines at this time. Customers can report their individual outages online at FPL.com, but no estimates for restoration are being given.

Many people turned to social media to share information about where they could find businesses that had power and were open, and also to vent about their own situations.

Jerry Berkowitz, of Plantation, wrote on the Facebook page Plantation Nation, “No power since 8:50 am yesterday — 3 downed live wires in my backyard, transformer busted, and I spent 1.5 hours on hold on their 800 outage before FPL hung up on me! Any chance we can get a truck roll soon?

“The last time this happened - Wilma - we were without power for 3.5 weeks: the absolute last neighborhood to get power in Broward Country !!!!! Don’t want that to happen again!”

Jessica Rymer, another Plantation resident, wrote: “There are over 6 million people without power in the state, it’s going to take a while. Everyone wants to be first, but they will do their best to get us all restored as soon as possible. Let’s try to remember they are people working hard too.”

The Plantation Nation page was functioning as a neighborhood clearinghouse with details about some local businesses that had power, or at least backup generators, and were able to open. That included several Publix stores and some restaurants gas stations.

In Margate, benches in front of a Publix were lined Monday afternoon with a half a dozen people seeking cooler air and a charging station for their power-hungry devices. Silagy asked for “patience,” saying crews are working to restore the status quo all around South Florida.

“We’re assessing the damage at the same time we’re restoring anything we can,” he said.

Power restoration begins with major transmission lines and feeders to get power up to the most people, he said. At the news conference, Silagy showed video taken near Sunrise on Monday that showed FPL utility repair trucks rolling out to trouble spots in Broward County.

Silagy said there has so far been no structural damage to the utility’s distribution system — only some downed poles and power lines. Flooding is likely to be an issue in areas including downtown Miami and Miami Beach.

“Southwest Florida took the brunt of the storm,” Silagy said. “We’re still assessing the damage in those areas. There were numerous tornadoes … the flooding in downtown Miami and downtown Fort Lauderdale was significant, as well as the amount of debris. This is storm that has produced more debris than we’ve seen in the history of any storm.”

“We’re focused on critical infrastructure facilities, hospitals, fire, police, 911 centers, shelters,” he said. “We will [also] focus on major thoroughfares.”

FPL also will be focused on “areas where we know it is important for people to be able to get their lives back as quickly as possible and get food and gasoline; banks, so they can get cash. We’ll work to get some of those areas up as quickly as possible,” he said.