Customers call out FPL
Communications criticized
Florida Power & Light’s failed customer communications system is making hundreds of thousands of unlucky customers in South Florida even hotter than the lack of A/C.
They are still without power on Day 6 after Hurricane Irma left the tri-county region, and they’re especially frustrated they can’t reach FPL.
“The level of total miscommunication is unbelievable,” said Roberta Adamovich, an Ocean Ridge resident without power who reported a downed power
pole near her house.
She said the FPL crew took one look at the pole and left, promising to return the next day. The house was still without power on Friday afternoon. When she contacts FPL, her account says power at her house is on.
Florida Public Counsel J.R. Kelly said that customer communications nearly always fail in major storms. He saw cellular communications fail in South Florida in the four hurricanes of 2004 and Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
“If you don’t have internet, what good is the app?” said Kelly, who helped investigate Florida’s power outages after the hurricanes. He said the cellular systems simply get overwhelmed during a crisis; at the same time, consumers lose power and internet.
At a news conference Friday, FPL spokesman Rob Gould said the company is addressing the communications issue, but is focused on meeting its own Sunday night deadline to have power restored to the tricounty area.
Overall, FPL had restored 82 percent of the power to homes and businesses in South Florida as of Friday evening. In Palm Beach County, 591,600 or 87 percent of homes and businesses affected by Irma had been restored. In Broward, 651,180, or 82 percent had been restored; in MiamiDade, the figure was 783,075, or 77 percent.
“We apologize for any kind of miscommunications or cross communications,” Gould said. “That is not our intent. Our intent is to get their lights on as quickly as possible.” He acknowledged that the system shows customer power in “on” status, when it isn’t.
FPL set up a mobile app, encouraging its customers to download it, before the storm. Customers were supposed to be able to report an outage, and receive an estimate of when power might be restored. Alternatives were checking an address on FPL.com or calling the utility’s outage phone number (800-4OUTAGE.)
Customers said all they get are an automated message, wrong information, or nothing. General power restoration estimates were given at news conferences, where FPL spokesmen said they couldn’t give specific neighborhood restoration information.
Boca Raton resident Martha Houck isn’t certain if the company will make its deadline. She said a crew inspected a broken power pole in the Old Floresta neighborhood near her home.
“They looked at it and they drive off,” said Houck, 65. “The crew told us we’re not getting power for two weeks.”