Irma Briefs XCEL WORKERS HEAD TO FLA. TO OFFER HELP
As Hurricane Irma pounded Miami on Sunday morning, a convoy filled with Xcel linemen, and other employees, left Denver to help Florida’s utility companies get customers back on the power grid when the storm is over.
The 71 members of the group are among 200 employees that Xcel, based in Minneapolis, is sending from Colorado and seven other states.
“There are 40 trucks now heading to Kansas City and then heading to Florida,” said Mark Stutz, an Xcel spokesman. The group is going to Tampa to help Tampa Electric with recovery efforts, and is expected to be in place by Wednesday morning.
A Tampa Electric power outage map showed 2,012 customers without power at 10:30 a.m. MDT when the storm was moving on the southwest Florida coast Sunday.
According to ABC News, Irma has killed three in the state, and left more than 1 million households and businesses without power.
Colorado is sending 62 lineman, three managers, two safety coordinators and four mechanics. In addition, 28 contractors from Colorado also have left or are heading to the hurricane area. They are expected to reach Tampa by Wednesday morning.
Colorado native making a stand.
FLA.» Isabella TAMPA, Sumner is riding out the storm in a condo. A Colorado native, she has lived in Tampa for two years. Irma is her first hurricane. For nearly a week, the 23-year-old has been intently tracking the hurricane’s path, her safety plans shifting each time the storm did.
“If anything, it’s just been the anticipation that has been the hardest,” Sumner said.
The building is on the edge of an evacuation zone. Sumner said she and her boyfriend and six other people sheltering there are hopeful the height of the fourth-floor condo will keep them safe from a storm surge and the windows, which were built to sustain 130 mph winds, will keep out debris.
She never intended to evacuate because, according to earlier forecasts, Tampa would be touched by Irma’s outer bands. Evacuating with millions of people with little gasoline would be too risky, she said. “No matter where you are in the state, you’re about to get hit pretty hard,” she said.
Manatees stranded as Irma sucks water from Sarasota Bay.
Two manatees were stranded after Irma sucked water out of Sarasota Bay. The animals were far too massive to be lifted, so people gave them water. A group of rescuers eventually loaded the manatees onto tarps and were able to drag them to deeper water.
Wedding plans change slightly.
FLA.» Lauren ORLANDO, Durham and Michael Davis had big plans for a beach wedding this month. Hurricane Irma had bigger plans.
So instead of a poofy white dress, Durham got married in her Air National Guard fatigues, with no makeup, in a vast hangar filled with rescue vehicles in Orlando. Davis is a senior airman in the guard, like his bride, so they had called to say they’d miss their own wedding.
Then on Sunday, a friend joked that they should get married during the hurricane. Dozens of people helped out, and a fellow guard member happens to be a notary and officiated. Someone even came up with a bouquet of flowers.
Gatorland promises its critters won’t get free.
» So here’s one less thing .to worry about: The people who run Gatorland, near Orlando, have promised that their thousands of alligators and crocodiles — not to mention their venomous snakes and boa constrictors — will not be making a great escape during the hurricane.
Protecting the people of central Florida from any reptile-related mayhem are Gatorland officials’ decades of experience and 8-foot fences.
Woman delivers own baby.
MIAMI» The call came in at 3:23 a.m. Sunday. A woman from the Little Haiti neighborhood told a dispatcher she was in labor. But strong winds had become too dangerous for paramedics and fire crews to respond to dozens of emergency calls. She called again at 5:35 a.m. She was about to give birth. A conference call was convened between the woman and the emergency crews who couldn’t get to her. Paramedics, a dispatcher and a doctor from Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami all walked her through her own childbirth — including delivering the placenta and cutting the umbilical cord.
“Baby came out good, healthy,” Assistant Fire Chief Pete Gomez said. “The woman was doing good, too.”