With the historical peak of hurricane season upon us, Florida Power & Light Company is ready to respond to severe weather and reminds its customers to be prepared.
Sept. 10 marked the peak of hurricane season for the Atlantic basin, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. A secondary peak affecting Florida historically occurs around mid-October.
After the 2020 hurricane season produced more named storms than any other, the 2021 season has already been active. Category 4 Hurricane Ida spared Florida most of its wrath but left a trail of devastation from Louisiana to New York.
FPL and Gulf Power sent more than 1,250 employees and contractors to help repair the grid in Louisiana, plus material to help rebuild the transmission system and two trucks equipped with charging stations and WiFi for those without power and internet to support the devastated locations. It’s another example of the mutual assistance agreements that are a hallmark of the utility industry and have benefited FPL in the past when Florida has been hit by hurricanes. In addition to making agreements with out-of-state utilities to help if needed, FPL orders backup supplies and equipment and plans staging sites around its service area so it can respond to hurricanes and severe weather safely and as quickly as possible.
FPL also continuously makes improvements throughout the year to build a stronger, smarter, more storm-resilient grid to improve reliability for customers in good weather and bad. These improvements include strengthening transmission structures and power lines, putting more power lines underground and installing more than 170,000 intelligent devices to detect potential problems and restore service faster if outages occur.
FPL provides information to help residential and business customers prepare for hurricane season and communicates with them after a severe weather event. FPL.com/storm features checklists and other information to help customers prepare and develop their own hurricane plans. When a hurricane strikes, FPL will provide updated restoration time estimates and other progress reports in the locations listed below:
FPL Storm Center (FPL.com/storm)
Twitter (twitter.com/insideFPL and twitter.com/FPL_Newsroom)
Facebook (facebook.com/FPLconnect)
YouTube (youtube.com/FPL)
FPL’s Power Tracker (FPL.com/powertracker) FPL’s mobile app – Download the FPL app by texting the word “App” to MyFPL (69375) or enroll in alerts by texting the word “Join” to MyFPL (69375)