FPL Completes Restoration of 2.8 Million Homes and Businesses 12 Days after Hurricane Frances.MIAMI Miami, cities, United States Miami (mīăm`ē, –ə). 1 City (1990 pop. 358,548), seat of Dade co., SE Fla., on Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River; inc. 1896. -- By midnight, FPL FPL feline panleukopenia. will complete restoring electric service to essentially all of the 2.8 million homes and businesses that had lost power due to Hurricane Frances This article is about the Atlantic hurricane of 2004; for other storms of the same name, see Hurricane Frances (disambiguation) Hurricane Frances was the sixth named storm, the fourth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. -- the second of two devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. hurricanes to slam FPL's 27,000 square-mile service area in less than a month. In the wakes of both Hurricanes Charley and Frances, FPL has restored power in record time to more than 3.5 million homes and businesses. "Hurricane Frances was a statewide disaster with massive implications to the electrical system and the operations of government agencies, public services Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. and businesses. It impacted every part of our service area and almost 2.8 million of our customers - a number not only unprecedented in FPL's history, but that of every other electric utility in the nation," said FPL President Armando Olivera. "In three days after feeling the first damaging winds of Frances, we were able to restore power to 50 percent of our customers. Within a week, 2.5 million of those impacted by the storm had their power back on. "We owe a great deal of thanks to our customers who demonstrated patience and understanding in spite of the suffering and inconvenience inflicted upon them by the hurricane. It also is impossible for us to adequately express our appreciation to the more than 7,000 men and women from 38 out-of-state utilities and contractors, in addition to our nearly 9,000 employees, who so unselfishly assisted in helping put our system back together. Hundreds of our employees were victims of both storms, but put their personal concerns aside to restore electric service as quickly and as safely as possible." In August, FPL restored service in 13 days to nearly 900,000 customers who lost power during the fast-moving Hurricane Charley This article is about the Atlantic hurricane of 2004; for other storms named Hurricane Charley, see Hurricane Charley (disambiguation). Hurricane Charley was the third named storm, the second hurricane, and the second major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. . Hurricane Frances was a different kind of storm, affecting Florida over 72 hours. The hurricane force winds of Frances, twice the size of Hurricane Charley and as big as Texas, extended throughout most of the state. The lingering lin·ger v. lin·gered, lin·ger·ing, lin·gers v.intr. 1. To be slow in leaving, especially out of reluctance; tarry. See Synonyms at stay1. 2. storm downed thousands of trees and poles, and damaged electrical equipment A piece of electrical equipment is a machine, powered by electricity and usually consists of an enclosure, a variety of electrical components and often a power switch. Examples of Electrical Equipment
Whereas Charley was only 40 miles wide and impacted 22 counties, Frances was 140 miles wide and affected most of Florida, including all of the 35 counties served by FPL. Frances caused only minor damage to two of FPL's 12 oil/gas-fired power plants in Florida, with no impact on their operations. There was no damage to the reactor buildings A reactor building is a general term for a building that houses a reactor of some type. In particular it often refers to a building containing a nuclear reactor. This can also be used to refer to pressure sealed buildings containing nuclear reactors, though it would be more correct at the St. Lucie nuclear power plant St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant is a twin nuclear power station located on Hutchinson Island, near Ft. Pierce, Florida in St. Lucie County. Both units are Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors. on Hutchinson Island. Unit 1 returned to service after completing post-storm evaluations by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), an independent U.S. government commission, created by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 and charged with licensing and regulating civilian use of nuclear energy to protect the public and the environment. and Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the federal agency responsible for coordinating emergency planning, preparedness, risk reduction, response, and recovery. The agency works closely with state and local governments by funding emergency programs and providing technical . Unit 2 is in the process of resuming operation. Well before Frances took its long trip across the state, FPL initiated its well-tested and solid restoration plan, requesting out-of-state crews, contacting suppliers for additional materials, initiating actions to deploy staging sites Website development usually involves staging and production servers. The staging site is used to assemble, test and review new versions of a website before it goes into production. , arranging for food and housing for thousands of workers, and a myriad of other efforts. Processes for communicating with government and regulatory agencies regulatory agency Independent government commission charged by the legislature with setting and enforcing standards for specific industries in the private sector. The concept was invented by the U.S. , customers, the news media and employees also were initiated as part of the plan. "Our storm preparation begins well in advance of a major storm landfall land·fall n. 1. The act or an instance of sighting or reaching land after a voyage or flight. 2. The land sighted or reached after a voyage or flight. , and the restoration process ensures an efficient and highly organized effort," said Geisha geisha Member of a professional class of women in Japan whose traditional occupation is to entertain men. A geisha must be adept at singing, dancing, and playing traditional musical instruments (e.g., the samisen) in addition to being skilled at making conversation. Williams, vice president of electrical distribution. "Our teams are among the best trained and most effective in the industry, and we have a proven record of restoring power quickly and safely following major storms." Immediately after the storm, FPL restoration crews began working around-the-clock, particularly addressing essential functions that support the infrastructure and safety of our communities, such as hospitals, police, fire, communications and water, sanitary and transportation providers. After that, the company concentrated on making repairs to the electrical facilities that returned power to the largest number of people first, then the next largest number, and so on until power was returned to everyone. Before neighborhood lines could be repaired, crews first repaired larger lines that bring power to neighborhoods. "Experience has shown that deviating from this process only serves to slow the overall restoration effort," Ms. Williams added. As restoration began, assessment teams set out by ground and air to determine the damage to FPL's system. Data gathered from this "pole-by-pole" inspection was used to determine needed repairs, the effective dispatching of workers and materials, and restoration time targets for the communities served by FPL. Contrary to Charley, where FPL was able to quickly dispatch crews and resources into the affected areas, the widespread outages throughout FPL's service area caused by Frances required field crews to complete restoration in their home service areas before deploying to the hardest-hit counties. In addition, the slow-moving storm delayed the movement of out-of-state crews, some from as far north as New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and as far west as Colorado, amassed at the Florida-Georgia border. Bad weather and heavy traffic from returning residents also delayed crews. However, as more and more workers arrived and joined the restoration effort, the additional manpower helped move the work along at a faster rate. A network of 12 regional staging sites, supplementing FPL's 35 service centers, was established to manage the deployment of crews and materials along Florida's entire east coast. While working around the clock to restore power, FPL also joined in helping to restore order to the lives of thousands of Floridians who were impacted by this season's hurricanes. Together, FPL employees and customers contributed more than $700,000 to the American Red Cross American Red Cross: see Red Cross. Relief Fund. "We're thankful that, despite the widespread damage, few lives where lost," Mr. Olivera said. "We also appreciate the opportunity to work closely with officials involved in emergency operations within the affected counties, as well as the state, to complement their efforts. In addition, we will continue our efforts to further enhance our system reliability and explore ways to be better prepared for whatever Mother Nature may have in store for us. We look forward to working with our customers and communities toward that goal. "FPL employees will always do whatever it takes to restore electric service as quickly and as safely as possible. We understand the problems our customers have when they're without power and we greatly appreciate their patience and understanding." As FPL crews work today, the company reports that there may be customers who may be facing problems with their power that must be serviced on an individual basis. For example, a neighborhood may have power, but because of a damaged weatherhead near the meter at a house or business, an individual may be without power and unable to take service. To avoid delays in power restoration, FPL is asking customers still without power today to call 1-800-4OUTAGE out·age n. 1. A quantity or portion of something lacking after delivery or storage. 2. A temporary suspension of operation, especially of electric power. . HURRICANE FRANCES: SNAPSHOT OF A STORM Outages: 2,786,300 homes and businesses in all 35 counties served by FPL Customer calls handled: 1,191,000 Restoration personnel: 16,000; including nearly 9,000 FPL employees and more than 7,000 workers from 38 utilities and contractors from 24 states and Canada Materials: --685 miles of wire (enough to stretch from Miami to Atlanta) --3,651 poles --3,793 transformers --30 truckloads of materials delivered daily at various locations throughout the state Support provided to restoration crews: --192,000 gallons of fuel daily --78,000 pounds of ice and 22,000 gallons of water daily --44,000 meals daily --15,000 hotel rooms daily --53,000 pounds of laundry cleaned Florida Power & Light Company is the principal subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :FPL), nationally known as a high quality, efficient and customer-driven organization focused on energy-related products and services. With annual revenues of more than $9 billion and a growing presence in 26 states, FPL Group is widely recognized as one of the country's premier power companies. Florida Power & Light Company serves more than 4.2 million customer accounts in Florida. FPL Energy, Inc., FPL Group's wholesale energy-generating subsidiary, is a leader in producing electricity from clean and renewable fuels Renewable fuels are alternative fuel sources such as ethanol, biodiesel (e.g. soy, vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases) or hydrogen, in contrast to non-renewable fuels such as natural gas, LPG (propane). . Additional information is available on the Internet at http://www.FPL.com, http://www.FPLGroup.com and http://www.FPLEnergy.com. Note to Editors: High-resolution logos and executive head shots are available for download at http://www.fpl.com/news/contents/logos.shtml . |
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