Widespread power outages expected as Helene eyes Florida

AccuWeather

Melissa Seixas of Duke Energy Florida shares how her team is preparing to respond to widespread power outages, which is expected when Helene makes landfall over the state on Thursday as a hurricane.

Transcript

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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