Are power companies ready for a major storm?

Losing power is one of the first things that comes to people’s minds when heavy wind and rain hit.

After Hurricane Ian, hundreds of people were out of power, and not for just a couple of hours but weeks.

That leaves the question: are power companies like Lee County Electric Cooperative and Florida Power & Light prepared for another tropical storm or hurricane?

“We’re ready [for] when a storm comes. We hope we don’t get one, but we train and we prep so that we’re prepared in the event that we do,” said Allan Ruth with LCEC.

Ruth said they learned many lessons from Hurricane Ian that they’re ready to apply to the next major storm.

He said that after Ian, there were four main things that needed to be fixed.

• More resources
• Employee impacts
• Customer outreach
• Base camp models

Shawn Johnson from FPL said that even though a hurricane or tropical storm isn’t on our radar today, they’re still prepping for it.

“We complete [training] every April and May, just a couple of months ago. It allows us to test ourselves, to fine-tune our skills, so we are ready to respond faster for customers. That paid off during Ian, where we were able to get 2/3 of customers back online within one day of the storm exiting the state and over 75% within 2 days, and all customers within eight days,” Johnson said.

Both FPL and LCEC told us that if you lose power, they’re not going to give up.

Both FPL and LCEC told us that their crews are fully staffed and even have crews from outside the area ready to come and help if there ever is a major power outage.