With hurricane season less than a month away, Florida's power crews are moving to reinforce power poles in order to boost the grid across the state. AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson reports on the process.
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00:00We are getting closer and closer to the start of Atlantic hurricane season, which is less than a
00:04month away. And Florida's major power companies, they're taking proactive measures to improve the
00:09resiliency of the state's electrical infrastructure. AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson joins us from Winter
00:15Park, Florida with more. And I understand, Leslie, it's a very daunting and time-consuming process.
00:22It is, Bernie. It's a 365-day-a-year process. They are working on power poles here in the state of
00:31Florida almost every single day. You can see one of the old wooden poles here behind me.
00:36This is actually a rare breed in this metro area of Orlando. Most of this area has already those
00:43concrete or steel power poles. But many of the smaller neighborhoods, like here in Winter Park,
00:47some of them do not. And as a result, there has been millions of people that have lost power
00:53here when we have hurricanes. Last year alone, just between Milton and Helene, we had over four
00:59and a half million people without power here in the state of Florida. So it's a real problem,
01:04and power crews are trying to address it. So Lee County in southwest Florida has an ongoing project
01:10right now that they're trying to get in completion. But hopefully during the hurricane season,
01:15they have about 1,600 power poles that they are currently replacing. Now, this is not all because
01:21of hurricane damage. They did sustain damage last year to their power poles from flooding and storm
01:27surge. But it's an ongoing wear and tear. The lifespan of the old wood poles is only about 40 to 60 years.
01:35So many areas in the state of Florida are at that threshold where they need to switch over to the
01:40more sturdy steel or concrete poles. So in southwest Florida, which took a big hit
01:46from Milton, they are trying to replace those power poles. And unfortunately, there was a lot of
01:53damage, as I mentioned, to Marco Island, one of the hardest hit areas in southwest Florida. But of
01:58course, Tampa and St. Pete are really the signature of the Milton-Helene scenario. But we talked to Lee
02:04County, and they do have a plan in place that they're rolling out as we speak.
02:09Hurricanes and storms do cause a lot of wear and tear on our system and our poles.
02:14After Hurricane Ian, that storm that happened in 2022, we did replace the majority of our system.
02:21We are always going to have our resources ready prior to the storms. And we actually have base camps
02:26now. And so that was a really big lessons learned from Hurricane Ian that we implemented with Hurricane Milton.
02:34So what she means by base camps is that power companies from around the country. Last year,
02:41Florida had about 48 states. Just about everyone came here to try and help the state of Florida when
02:47we lost power during the hurricane. So these base camps, they get them in place well before a storm
02:53strikes, anywhere from seven to 10 days to get those power crews in place. So if there is widespread power
02:59damage or loss, they can try and get those crews out and try and get power restored as quickly as
03:05possible. Now, that current project that's in southwest Florida is going to take about a year.
03:10And so they're working through that as we speak. Many power companies, FPNL and Duke Energy, the two
03:15largest power companies here in the state of Florida, are also repairing their wooden power poles to try and
03:21get ready for the 2025 hurricane season, which is rapidly approaching. Reporting live in Winter Park,
03:26I'm Leslie Hudson. Back to you. I can tell you in Marco Island, Florida, they were actively working on that there.