FP&L promises almost all will have power by Monday night

FP&L shows News 6 what it's up against

On a portion of Halifax Avenue through Oak Hill in Volusia County, a row of seemingly never-ending trees line both sides of the swampy stretch. Many of the trees are tall, old and heavy.

When Hurricane Matthew rolled through, many of the trees were blown down onto the roadway, snapping not just the power lines than run the length of the roadway but also the poles holding them up.

FP&L's chief communications officer said the stretch is an example of destruction -- and repairs -- they didn't expect.

"In some cases where the storm did its thing, we're not only restoring, we're talking about rebuilding the entire infrastructure." said Rob Gould, vice president of communications for FP&L. "It's not a question of resources or manpower. We have all that. It's a matter of getting out to these pockets. This is devastation."

Gould said linemen from across the country came to Central Florida to assist and restored power to 98 percent of its customers -- more than 1 million of the 1.2 million who lost power – within two days. But the hardest-hit areas will take longer.

He said the process to rebuild electricity infrastructure is tedious and laborious. First, tree trimmers must chop down branches hanging over the lines, cut up and haul away tree trunks and large limbs, reset the power poles, and then replace the
lines.

But the roughly 7,000 power still without power in Volusia County as of Tuesday afternoon are frustrated their street isn't getting the same attention.

"I just want to know why we have no electricity," said Natasha Davey, who said most of her complex, the Overlook at Daytona Beach, is still out. "Some people in our building do and some people don't. What confuses me is how do they have electricity and some of us don't? There's elderly people, people with kids, people with breathing machines who bring their breathing machines down to the highway. It's crazy."

Gould explained that the power grid isn't symmetrical.

"The grid is not a perfect square, the grid goes where the grid goes," said Gould. "There could be one house that has power but the rest of the street doesn't. That house could be fed by what we call the feeder."

Davey also wanted to know why the time frames she's gotten from FP&L for restoration have not been accurate.

"I just feel as though they're not being honest with us," said Davey. "Stop giving everyone the same time [for restoration] if it's not the truth. Tell us we don't know what the situation is right now, I can respect that a lot more."

Gould said most of the restoration time frames are accurate but admits some slip, especially when linemen encounter damage that is worse than expected, like the section of Halifax Avenue in Oak Hill.

"We are absolutely being honest with our customers, we're telling them what we know when we know it," said Gould. "We are not going to sugarcoat the situation because that's worse.""

Gould promised that almost all FP&L customers in Central Florida would have their power back on by Tuesday night.


About the Author:

Erik von Ancken anchors and reports for News 6 and is a two-time Emmy award-winning journalist in the prestigious and coveted "On-Camera Talent" categories for both anchoring and reporting.

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