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Oct 26 - South Florida Sun-Sentinel
A knot of Florida Power & Light Co. workers, sweating profusely under the afternoon sun, wrestled a shattered wood power pole out of the ground with a crane-like machine Wednesday and replaced it with a new pole. It was the eighth in a long line of poles toppled and split by Hurricane Wilma that the FPL crew began replacing at 6 a.m. that day along South Dixie Highway in Pompano Beach. This complicated task involved cutting away any branches and other debris from the work area, dropping their heavy load of wires and transformers, removing the damaged pole, using a drill to install a new one and finally replacing the wires high above the street. The 10 or so skilled workers had six trucks, including a hydraulic lift, the pole remover, a trailer carrying a fresh supply of poles and a stock of insulators, wire and other equipment. The scene was repeated at hundreds of sites in 15 counties as an army of FPL employees and contract workers from out of state, logging 16-hour workdays, struggled to restore service to about 2.5 million customers. By Wednesday, the company had restored power to 689,400 customers, or about 21 percent of those Wilma left in the dark. In Broward County 24,700 were back online, leaving 838,100 without power, while 70,300 customers in Palm Beach County had electricity restored and 593,200 were without power. In Miami-Dade County, the lights were back on for 156,100 subscribers, leaving 800,400 without electricity. FPL has brought so many workers into the state in recent days -- about 2,000 have joined the 8,000-strong workforce in the last 24 hours -- that the company had to set up tent cities for workers at Calder Racetrack in Miami, as well as sites in St. Lucie and Fort Myers. Outside workers are arriving from 33 states and Canada, the company said, and 2,600 more are expected by Sunday. Workers have restored power to customers north of Brevard County, and the company was scheduled to complete work on most outages in the west coast areas of Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties, as well as the east coast of Brevard. The company said that in all other areas, power should be restored to "the majority of customers" by Nov. 8. About 95 percent of customers in these areas, including the tri-county area, will have electricity by Nov. 15. Geisha Williams, FPL's vice president of electric distribution, told the media Wednesday that these dates referred to the times the last customers would be back on line, and stressed that most subscribers would have electricity ahead of time. Earlier assessments showed that the most serious damage to poles, wires and substations occurred in Broward and southeastern Palm Beach counties, she said, promising more precise projections as the company completes detailed damage assessments. Williams and FPL President Armando Olivera said that by Wednesday night most hospitals in South Florida would be back in service, and that the company has made good progress in restoring power to Port Everglades, as well as major airports and other public services. Large portions of Weston and areas in Jupiter east of I-95 also have power. "Every day you'll see more and more gas stations and grocery stores open," Olivera said. "but it will never go as fast as customers want or we want." "What makes this so challenging is the incredible volume of damage we're facing and the pockets of severe damage," said Williams. In some places, 40 to 50 poles were split or knocked down by the storm at once, "and we still don't know why this happened," she added. "We haven't seen this type of damage since Andrew," Olivera said. ----- To see more of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- including its homes, jobs, cars and other classified listings -- or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sun-sentinel.com . Copyright (c) 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. |