While South Florida braces for the potential impact of Hurricane Dorian, Florida Power & Light are also preparing for potential power outages the storm could cause.
The company said it already has 5,000 employees, contractors and partners signed up to help restore power in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian. The utility also said they have 15,000 transformers, 75,000 miles of wire to repair power lines and 3 million gallons of diesel to power their trucks.
All the supplies are ready to go from FPL’s command center in Riviera Beach, the company’s storm headquarters for the entire state.
FPL is currently waiting to see where Dorian is forecasted to hit so they can deploy crews to the areas that will need help the most.
“In many ways it’s like trying to move an army around the state how do you feed them, how do you fuel their trucks, where are they going to sleep?” said Bryan Garner, a spokesperson for the company.
“All of those decisions are made now so that those crews, once the storm has passed, when it’s safe to restore power they can hit the ground running and they’re able to work around the clock, and really focus on their job which is restoring power."
FPL said they had supplies on hand to respond to a Category 4 storm at the beginning of hurricane season, which they say is protocol now every year.
