FPL: Power 99.9 percent restored

Next phase is a home-by-home effort

Florida Power & Light Co. says that eastern Florida is “essentially restored” at 99.9 percent.

As of Wednesday night, Broward County still had 70 homes and businesses without power and Miami-Dade County had 380, according to FPL’s “power tracker” online.

“Our final phase of restoration is a more lengthy, home-by-home effort, as we work exhaustively to ensure each customer has power,” said FPL spokesman Bryan Garner.

Palm Beach County now fully has its power back after last weekend’s Hurricane Irma, according to FPL. The county was “more than” 99 percent completed on Tuesday, but there were still some customers with damage or other special situations.

In Broward, more than 99 percent is restored and Miami-Dade is more than 99 percent restored, according to FPL.

Palm Beach and Broward residents who didn’t have power on Tuesday asserted they felt they were lied to by FPL, which was only providing county-wide estimates for restoration online or on the phone, and missed those. It had given Palm Beach County residents a restoration estimate of Sunday evening.

“FPL follows an overall restoration plan that calls for restoring service to the greatest number of customers in the shortest time,” Garner said. Earlier in the week, FPL apologized for its customer communications systems failure and said that after this restoration, it would work to improve.

The utility tweeted Wednesday morning that more than 6,500 workers were moving to the hardest-hit parts of Miami-Dade. The utility has had more than 20,000 from around the country and even Canada working to restore power in Florida after the hurricane.

Statewide, FPL still has 55,050 homes and businesses without power after Hurricane Irma, but has restored 96.8 percent. The most outages left are in Lee and Collier counties in Southwest Florida, which experienced hurricane-force winds and flooding.

FPL provides power to 4.9 million homes and businesses, which is about about 10 million people, in more than half the state; of those, 4.5 million were affected by Hurricane Irma.