After Irma, FPL vows to improve
After being slow to share information about power outages after Hurricane Irma, Florida Power & Light officials vowed Tuesday to do better, especially in estimating restoration of service after a storm. Fort Lauderdale was particularly hard-hit.
Florida Power & Light acknowledged Tuesday it needs to do a better job communicating with the public and with local governments after major storms and hurricanes, particularly in estimating when power will be restored.
An FPL vice president met Tuesday with Fort Lauderdale commissioners, recapping and defending the utility’s performance after Hurricane Irma in September. The utility invested nearly $3 billion to strengthen equipment after Hurricane Wilma in 2005 to avoid widespread damage and outages. Despite that, 90 percent of FPL’s 5 million customers statewide lost power when Hurricane Irma struck.
FPL refused to tell the public, or even cities, specifically where power outages were, commissioners said, and offered changing or inaccurate estimates for restoration. Crews working in neighborhoods didn’t always communicate with homeowners.
Residents pleaded for help. Some with Internet access reached out on Twitter.
“Please don’t forget Harbor Inlet !!!! ” one person tweeted to Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler. “10 pets !!!!! in one house”
Another wrote, “I saw a line down at my neighbor’s house and it’s kind of wrapped in a tree. But I have poor cell reception and am unable to call.”
Irma made landfall in Florida on Sept. 10. Nearly a week later, on Sept. 16, Mayor Jack Seiler expressed frustration in a tweet, as thousands in Fort Lauderdale remained in the dark, and without air conditioning.
“I have become extremely frustrated over the last 18 hours,” he wrote. “FPL needs to allocate more resources to Ft. Lauderdale & eastern Broward County.”
Pamela Rauch, vice president of external affairs and economic development, said the utility called on workers from as far away as Canada. A historic number of workers — 28,000 — descended on Florida to help, Rauch said. They worked 16-hour shifts and slept in trailers.
Power was restored to threefourths of customers in FPL’s 27,000-mile territory within three days. But that still left thousands of people sweltering in the heat.
Rauch said the storm’s size and duration spread FPL’s staff thin, straining FPL’s ability to communicate.
“We’re going to do better next time,” she said of FPL’s post-storm communications.
Seiler said cities need detailed outage information so they can deploy police to neighborhoods where power remains out.
City Manager Lee Feldman asked FPL to rethink its philosophy about what information it won’t divulge. He said the city was given a map with dots showing in very general terms where outages remained, and FPL refused to give refined detail.
“We understand what your need is,” FPL regional manager Juliet Roulhac responded, “so we’re trying to figure out a better way.”
Rauch said FPL also is “looking at how to improve estimates.”
Rauch said the chief culprit in outages was trees. FPL used 50 drone teams to look in people’s backyards, where many of the troubles occurred.
“When a tree comes down on our wires,” she said, “there’s nothing we can do to harden that.”
Still, FPL’s response was better than after Wilma.
Half the customers had power back after one day, according to FPL, compared with five days after Wilma. All power was restored in 10 days, compared with 18 after Wilma.
Hurricane Wilma damaged 12,400 poles and took out power at 241 substations. Irma damaged just 2,500 poles and took out 92 substations, according to Rauch.
That’s despite the fact that Wilma was a Category 3 hurricane that impacted 21 FPL counties, and Irma a Category 4 when it initially hit Florida, impacting 35 FPL counties.
bwallman@sun-sentinel .com, 954-356-4541, Twitter @BrittanyWallman