Dorian approaches Florida as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane; FPL is ready to respond and urges customers to remain vigilant and prepare for outages

JUNO BEACH, Fla., Sept. 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Power & Light Company is urging customers to remain vigilant and prepare for power outages as extremely dangerous Hurricane Dorian moves close to Florida's east coast. The company has pre-positioned equipment and the largest pre-storm restoration workforce in company history in preparation for this Category 4 hurricane.

"Dorian remains a very dangerous hurricane with an unpredictable track and intensity as it inches toward Florida. Customers should stay vigilant as significant parts of our service territory remain within the cone of uncertainty," said Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL. "This is a challenging and very slow moving storm that will impact our service area with tropical storm-force winds for an extended duration. Rest assured, as long as it is safe to do so, our crews will be out restoring power as the first bands of severe weather move through, and we'll work continuously after the storm clears until all customers have power again."

FPL has assembled the largest pre-storm restoration workforce in company history, with approximately 17,000 ready to respond, including FPL employees and workers from other utilities and electrical contracting companies. FPL has also undertaken a massive logistics operation to prepare for Dorian.

The company has pre-staged:

• Sleeper trailers with more than 4,000 beds.
• Almost 60 drone teams.
• Thousands of pre-positioned transformers and poles.
• 75 fuel trucks able to supply more than 3.5 million gallons of fuel.

FPL has set up more than a dozen staging sites, from the Calder Race Course in Miami-Dade County to north of Jacksonville, so that workers will be in place to restore power safely and as quickly as possible.

Restoration estimates

"As soon as it is safe to do so after the storm passes, FPL personnel will be out in the field actively working to determine the extent of damage from this powerful hurricane," added Silagy. "They must do this before we can provide an estimate of how long it will take to restore service."

FPL knows how important information is in times of crisis, so we will communicate our best estimates. Approximately 24 hours after the storm has cleared an area, our goal will be to communicate when we believe restoration will be completed for 95% of FPL customers affected by the storm in that area.

These preliminary estimates will be based on actual wind speeds and storm track, historical storm data, sophisticated computer modeling and data gathered from initial drone imaging before our field teams are able to complete thorough damage assessments. As we gather more information from the field, estimated restoration times will be refined.

FPL has made significant upgrades to our customer communication channels – specifically our website and mobile app. During a storm, we adjust how power status information is presented on the FPL app and FPL.com. We update your power status throughout the day.

For our customers not already feeling the effects of Dorian, FPL urges customers to complete their final preparations, heed warnings and evacuation orders from local, state and federal officials and prepare for potential prolonged outages in areas where vegetation and flooding present challenges. Most importantly, make safety the highest priority. If you come to an intersection with a non-working traffic signal, Florida law requires you treat it as a four-way stop. Be sure to heed the Move Over Law, and move over or slow down whenever there is a utility worker, law enforcement officer or a first responder on the side of the road.

Additional resources

• How FPL restores power
• Stay safe before a storm

Customers can download the FPL app for on-the-go, instant and secure access to their accounts. Customers can report or get the latest information on an outage. The app is available for download in the App Store and Google Play. To quickly download the FPL app, text the word "App" to MyFPL (69375). Customers also can sign up for storm updates by texting the word "Join" to MyFPL (69375).

How to stay informed
FPL communicates restoration information to customers frequently through the news media and the following resources:

• FPL website: FPL.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/insideFPL
• Facebook: facebook.com/FPLconnect
• FPL blog: FPLblog.com 
• FPL Power Tracker: FPL.com/powertracker
• FPL app: Download from the App Store or Google Play, or text the word "App" to MyFPL (69375)

Florida Power & Light Company
Florida Power & Light Company is the largest energy company in the United States as measured by retail electricity produced and sold, serving more than 5 million customer accounts or an estimated 10 million+ people across the state of Florida. FPL's typical 1,000-kWh residential customer bill is approximately 30 percent lower than the latest national average and among the lowest in the U.S. FPL's service reliability is better than 99.98 percent, and its highly fuel-efficient power plant fleet is one of the cleanest among all electric companies nationwide. The company was recognized in 2018 as one of the most trusted U.S. electric utilities by Market Strategies International for the fifth consecutive year. A leading Florida employer with approximately 8,700 employees, FPL is a subsidiary of Juno Beach, Florida-based NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NEE), a clean energy company widely recognized for its efforts in sustainability, ethics and diversity, and has been ranked No. 1 in the electric and gas utilities industry in Fortune's 2019 list of "World's Most Admired Companies." NextEra Energy is also the parent company of Gulf Power Company, which serves more than 460,000 customers in eight counties throughout Northwest Florida, and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, which, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun and a world leader in battery storage. For more information about NextEra Energy companies, visit these websites: www.NextEraEnergy.com, www.FPL.com, www.GulfPower.com, www.NextEraEnergyResources.com.

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SOURCE Florida Power & Light Company