Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida five years ago.

It’s tough to believe that half a decade has gone by since spots like the Florida Keys were severely affected and power was knocked out in the bay area.

“As Irma was making landfall in Southwest Florida, it was weakening so all of that energy spread out so the entire state felt the effects of Irma so there was a large area that really felt the impacts as that storm was weakening,” said Bay News 9 meteorologist Diane Kacmarik.

That scale created issues for power companies.

“It actually came almost in the center of the state and it impacted every single one of our counties,” said Anna Gibbs, spokesperson for Duke Energy.

According to Gibbs, Duke covered 35 counties and about 2 million customers when Irma blew through. She says 75 percent of them lost power from that storm.

“It wasn’t unique just to Duke Energy; you could literally see the outages across the state,” Gibbs said. “But since that September, a lot has changed. That will make us safer should another Irma like storm come our way.”

And the improved technology is a difference maker in utilizing crews and limiting outages as much as possible.

For example, Gibbs says they now have smart meters they can ping remotely that will let them know why there’s an outage instead of sending a truck to find out.

And that’s crucial because outages can still happen, but how quickly power is restored can make a difference, according to Gibbs.

Because of that and the technological upgrades, she says our region will have a better chance at keeping the lights on if we see another storm like Irma. Something she hopes doesn’t happen soon.