TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Utility executives told state regulators Wednesday that Florida's power companies are well positioned to avoid many of the pitfalls encountered in the wake of Hurricane Irma, when more than 100,000 customers remained without power a full week after the storm hit. But they warned that some prolonged post-storm power outages are inevitable, primarily because of geography.

  • Execs spoke to state Public Service Commission
  • Remarks came as part of hurricane preparedness workshop
  • WATCH the Hurricane Preparedness workshop HERE

The comments came during an annual hurricane preparedness workshop before the Florida Public Service Commission. The commission has received a slew of complaints about power restoration efforts after Irma, a storm that affected the entire Florida Peninsula.

As crews worked to turn the lights - and air conditioners - back on, many customers who had gone without power for days grew frustrated after failed attempts to get more information about timetables.

"Looking at the 700 customer comments, and they came in to all of our offices, and communication, ultimately, is an issue," said Commissioner Julie Brown.

 

 

Florida Power and Light Distribution Operations Vice President Bryan Olnick acknowledged the communication problems, noting that many of the customer complaints fielded by FPL concerned its smartphone app.

"During Irma, the way we engineered the mobile app had a lot of information that, during a storm, customers really didn't care about," Olnick said. "And so, that was a big lesson learned for us: how do we trim that down during a storm so that, all's they really want to know is 'give me my (information) if I'm going to be in or out'."

As for the speed of power restoration after the hurricane, the executives said the significant statewide impacts - particularly all the trees that knocked down power lines - proved especially challenging to overcome. During their work, Duke Energy crews created a tally of more than 500 electrical poles that fell in critical locations.

"The results from that review have helped shape our plan to, among other things, build more resilient transformers, increase the strength and capacity of hundreds of more line-miles, and use data anayltics to target undergrounding of the poorest performing overhead segments," Jason Cutliffe, the company's director of power quality and reliability, testified.

The companies' expensive plans to bury large stretches of above-ground power lines, however, will be years in the making. If a major storm strikes the state during the 2018 hurricane season, power outages - some lengthy - could be unavoidable.

"Our customers expect and deserve power that stays on, and if there is an outage, power that comes back faster than before," Cutliffe said.