RIVIERA BEACH — Hurricane Irma could cut the power to as many as 3 million Florida Power & Light customers before the storm is done with Florida, FPL officials said Sunday morning in a 40-minute briefing meeting at the company's command center.
Outages stood at 2,010,240 customer accounts — or about 4 million people — at 1:45 p.m. Sunday and were expected to increase throughout the day. Including more than 339,000 customers whose power was at some point restored, outages have affected about 2.25 million accounts, or 4 million people in FPL’s 35-county territory.
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At noon — the most recent county-by-county breakdown available — 227,050 Palm Beach County customers were without power as well as 488,650 in Broward County and 726,610 in Miami-Dade County.
As various FPL division chiefs gave their reports, radar on the 55-inch screen showed the massive storm covering all of Florida except for part of the Panhandle, and part of Georgia.
While FPL workers are repairing what they can Sunday between feeder bands in some areas, including Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County, about 17,000 line and vegetation workers are prepared to begin full-scale restoration efforts Monday.
The repairs and restoration are forecast to take more than 1 million man hours, but the cost cannot yet be calculated.
A large tree blocks a residential street as Hurricane Irma passes by, Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017, in Coral Gables, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
FPL CEO and President Eric Silagy said, “We are not going to bed here. We are working 24/7. This is a monster.
“Right now we are still waiting for the storm to make landfall,” Silagy went on to say. “These are all just estimates based on computer models. What they don’t take into account is tornadoes.”
Once the impact of tornadoes, which can cause structural damage, and storm surge are known, the damage assessment should take about 48 hours, Silagy said.
“This is the hardest part of the storm for us. We know what our customers are going through. Outages are going to continue to climb because the storm is getting closer. This is a slow-moving storm. Frances was a lot like this,” Silagy said.
When you are at home riding this through, and power goes out, it is out for a long time,” Silagy said. “By the time the storm clears, some people will have been out for a day, and we haven’t even been able to roll a truck.”
FPL meteorologist Tim Drum forecasts the storm will make landfall on the Southwest Florida coast Sunday afternoon or evening, possibly between Naples and Fort Myers.
Hurricane-force winds extend 80 miles from Irma’s center, tropical storm winds extend 220 miles. Tornadoes are expected throughout the day.
Tropical storm force winds should end in Palm Beach County by 9 a.m. Sunday, Drum said.
To report an outage, go to FPL.com
To view the outage map, report an outage, or check the status of an outage, click here.
FPL crews are working to restore power. Crews can work as long as winds are less than 35 mph.
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