00:00One of the areas that we're worried about a direct landfall is toward Florida's Big Bend.
00:05Duke Energy Florida is the major power provider there with two million customers in the state.
00:11Melissa Spacious is president of Duke Energy Florida. Thanks for joining us again, Melissa.
00:16How is Duke Power preparing for this potential for this hurricane and what personnel and
00:22equipment are getting in place? Well, good morning. We have been
00:27in preparation mode for the last few days. We're fully activated and part of that is
00:33mobilizing resources. We have about 8,000 resources that will be very active in this
00:40restoration effort. That includes line personnel, vegetation management personnel,
00:46damage assessors, overall leadership, safety, and of course working with our state and local
00:53officials in their emergency operating centers. So we are all in, have all the resources that we
00:59need and we are prepared. And where are you mobilizing your resources? Are there specific
01:05parts of Florida where you're focusing preventative efforts? Yes, so what we do
01:13initially is we put the resources in staging areas outside of the projected path of the storm
01:21and then once the storm makes impact, we know where the damage is, then we're able to move
01:26them into base camps to get them even closer to the damage assessment. But we have four primary
01:32locations around the state where we have these resources mobilizing at this very minute.
01:39They're in central Florida down into the northern part of, in Pinellas County and also in
01:48south Pinellas, north Pinellas, and then up in kind of closer to the panhandle area. But as I
01:54said, we really need to ensure that we stage them outside of the direct path to keep them safe so
02:00that they're ready to go into restoration mode immediately when it's safe for us to get them
02:07out in the field. And what do you suggest to Duke customers, anyone who's watching right now,
02:12who uses Duke Energy, what should they be doing now to get ready in the event of a power outage?
02:19Preparation is key. We want our customers to remain safe. They need to take the storm seriously,
02:25especially for our customers who are along the coast. There's a lot of significant storm surge
02:31that is expected with Helene, and so we want them to take it seriously, look at the resources that
02:38their respective counties offer, from sandbags to emergency shelters, and just ensure that they're
02:45safe and we'll get the power back on so that they can get home and resume their lives as soon as possible.
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