Not so powerless

FPL says most are in Dade

Only about 50,000 homes and businesses in South Florida remained without power on Monday.

Nearly 50,000 homes and businesses in South Florida were still without power after Hurricane Irma on Monday afternoon, with the bulk of the outages in Miami-Dade County.

Broward County still had 9,080 outages; Palm Beach County, 1,260; and MiamiDade, 37,060, according to Florida Power & Light Co.’s “power tracker” system online.

Many customers who had emailed or telephoned the Sun Sentinel for help saw their power restored Sunday night or Monday.

Michelle Rogers, a resident in the Rolling Oaks division of Southwest Ranches in Broward, said FPL crews arrived Sunday to repair “live wires & transformer to rotted broken pole which fell sparking and booming into my yard.”

“Gross negligence!,” Rogers said in her email.

FPL has restored nearly 99 percent of its accounts in Broward County, 99.8 percent in Palm Beach County; and 96 percent in MiamiDade County.

The electric utility has spent nearly $3 billion since 2006 to upgrade its distribution system, but a total of 4.4 million homes and businesses — or about 9 million people -- still lost power after Hurricane Irma. For South Florida, the storm was less devastating than forecast because winds were tropical-storm force, except for some hurricaneforce gusts, according to the National Hurricane Center.

FPL spokesman Bud Fraga said hurricane-force winds, flying debris, broken trees, and some flooding caused the outages.

South Florida crews were moving Monday toward hard-hit parts of Miami-Dade, traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood to restore power.

But it wasn’t fast enough for Coral Gables city attorney Craig Leen who sent a letter to FPL, fining the utility $500 a day per home without power, up to $15,000 a day. He said the city is considering filing a lawsuit against FPL.

“People should not have to tolerate this,” Leen said.