FPL should give Irma sufferers more information

For all the money Florida Power and Light spent on its “smart grid” system, you’d think the power company could better communicate with the 1.5 million South Florida home and business owners who remain without power in Hurricane Irma’s aftermath.

Instead, about 48 hours after the storm’s passage, FPL issued a blanket statement Tuesday saying customers on Florida’s east coast could expect power restored by the end of the weekend.

The end of the weekend? Any chance we might see the details in that timeline? Understanding the restoration’s rollout would better help those of us still sweating in the dark prepare for the days ahead.

Communications were no better on the mobile app that FPL encouraged us to download before Irma’s arrival. Some of us were told the power was on, when it was off. Some of us were told crews were on the way, when none had appeared a day later. And some of us who plugged our addresses into the “outage report” received a message saying outages didn’t need to be reported. Tuesday, the company’s website said we should re-report all outages and apologized for the snafu.

Neither is FPL’s “Power Tracker” much help in tracking when we might see power again. All it shows, by county, is the number of customers who still lack power and how many have had power restored. Such a map does nothing to help anxious people anticipate when they might get power restored.

Now consider that as part of its $3 billion smart-grid upgrade a few years back, FPL installed smart meters on each of our homes and businesses to tell its crews how much power we’re using or whether we’ve lost power.

With that upgrade — largely funded by us, its ratepayers — came this promise: “The smart grid allows customers to be updated by text or phone on the cause and restoration time once their power goes out.” So what happened? If a TV weatherman can tell us when a storm cell will pass over our house, why can’t FPL tell us when it expects to focus on restoring power to our neighborhood?

We understand that unforeseen complications can arise. Stuff happens. But FPL crews carry iPads to regularly report updates to headquarters. Why can’t that information be shared?

The best information we’ve gotten goes like this. First, FPL wants to ensure its power plants are working, which they are, except for those deliberately taken out of service for other reasons. Second, it wants to assess damage to its transmission lines, substations and concrete poles, which a spokesman said Tuesday survived surprisingly well. And third, it wants to focus on hospitals, police and fire stations, emergency communications centers and major thoroughfares.

It’s the fourth step — the focus on specific neighborhoods — that needs to be fleshed out.

FPL seems reluctant to share that information because it doesn’t want to alert looters to neighborhoods without power. “For public safety, we don’t go down into individual neighborhoods,” CEO Eric Silagy said Tuesday.

But failing to provide information risks public safety in other ways. Some people are staying in dangerously darkened homes because they expect the lights to reappear any minute. And some are navigating roads with failed stoplights to check and recheck their homes for power.

FPL’s customers are frustrated. For proof, look no further than its social media sites.

Look we get that Hurricane Irma was a big storm and in many ways, FPL has performed admirably. It pre-staged crews to respond the moment roads were passable. It recruited close to 20,000 people to help restore power. And within a day of the storm’s passage, it had restored power to 40 percent of customers, including those who lost power when at-risk substations were deliberately brought down.

In many ways, FPL deserves applause. All those trucks on the highway give the feeling that the cavalry has arrived.

But when this is all over, FPL’s performance will rightly face questions, and that includes its communications plan.

For beyond individual convenience, the performance of this utility— granted a monopoly in 35 Florida counties — greatly matters to our state’s economy.

And though it appears to be doing much right, when it comes to communicating with businesses and homeowners, its performance doesn’t match the promise.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Elana Simms, Andy Reid, Deborah Ramirez and Editor-in-Chief Howard Saltz.