JUNO BEACH, Fla., Jan. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Power
& Light Company (FPL) today announced 140 additional company
lineworkers and support staff deployed to Puerto Rico to help restore power to areas
impacted by Hurricane Maria's landfall. Hundreds of thousands of
people remain without electric service nearly four months after the
destructive storm devastated the island.
"As part of FPL's commitment to helping restore electric service
to our fellow Americans in Puerto
Rico, our dedicated employees worked tirelessly throughout
the holidays – both on the island and here at home – to prepare for
this next wave of support," said Eric
Silagy, president and CEO of FPL. "Providing mutual
assistance is a staple of the energy industry, and our thoroughly
trained, well-equipped lineworkers are ready to hit the ground
running once they arrive in Puerto
Rico. We know just how difficult it is to be without power,
which is why we are prepared to remain in Puerto Rico for as long as our assistance and
expertise is requested."
All of the island's 3.5 million residents lost power due to
Hurricane Maria in late September. FPL lineworkers and staff are
part of a nearly 1,500-person contingent of electric workers from
across the country. In late December, FPL began to transport
vehicles and electric equipment via barges to Puerto Rico from the Port of Fort Pierce in St.
Lucie County, Fla.
The company's lineworkers and support staff will work with the
10-person FPL Incident Management Team (IMT) that has been working
in Puerto Rico since Dec. 10. FPL employees represent one of seven IMT
assigned to seven regions across the island in coordination with
the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) and electric company contractors who already are restoring
power. FPL's IMT will continue to support power restoration in the
region of Bayamon, just west of San
Juan.
FPL's support of power restoration in Puerto Rico began after the company completed
its own restoration in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. In the days
immediately following Hurricane Maria, NextEra Energy, FPL's parent
company, donated $100,000 and matched
the same amount from employee donations to help those affected by
the storm. Many employees also held fundraisers and supply drives
to assist those impacted across the island.
"We feel a responsibility to help speed power restoration in
Puerto Rico, partly because many
of our customers and employees have strong ties to the island, but
largely because it's the right thing to do," said Manny Miranda, senior vice president of power
delivery for FPL. "Having completed the unprecedented restoration
of more than 4.4 million FPL customers following Hurricane Irma, I
am confident our highly skilled team of lineworkers, management and
support staff will quickly begin making a difference for so many of
our fellow Americans."
Operationally, FPL coordinated the delivery of thousands of
power line poles and other equipment to Puerto Rico and accompanied Florida Gov.
Rick Scott to the island in
November. Since that time, FPL leadership has remained in
Puerto Rico where it has been
providing technical expertise and guidance to support the
restoration effort. Gov. Scott has made the support of Puerto Rico's citizens a top priority in the
wake of Hurricane Maria, communicating regularly with Gov. Ricardo
Rosselló, traveling to the island to offer the state's assistance,
and regularly meeting with and being briefed by FPL.
Mutual assistance throughout the energy industry plays a
critical role in the restoration of power following severe weather
events, such as hurricanes, ice storms and tornadoes. In September,
crews from 30 states and Canada
came to Florida to support power restoration efforts following
Hurricane Irma. In fact, those workers, coupled with FPL's more
than $3 billion of investments over
the past decade to build a stronger and smarter energy grid, helped
shave days off the restoration.
In turn, FPL crews have traveled across the nation to help
restore power following major weather events many times in the
past, including the deployment of approximately 1,000 FPL personnel
to the Northeast in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Recently, more than 300 men and women deployed to Maine and Connecticut to assist with restoration
activity following an October Nor'easter.
Florida Power & Light
Company
Florida Power &
Light Company is the third-largest electric utility in the United States, serving nearly 5 million
customer accounts or an estimated 10 million people across nearly
half of the state of Florida. FPL's typical 1,000-kWh residential
customer bill is approximately 25 percent lower than the latest
national average and, in 2016, was the lowest in Florida among reporting utilities for the
seventh year in a row. 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 utilities nationwide. The company
received the top ranking in the southern U.S. among large electric
providers, according to the J.D. Power 2016 Electric Utility
Residential Customer Satisfaction StudySM, and was
recognized in 2017 as one of the most trusted U.S. electric
utilities by Market Strategies International. A leading Florida
employer with approximately 8,900 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 2017 list of "World's Most Admired Companies." NextEra
Energy is also the parent company of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC,
which, together with its affiliated entities, is the world's
largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun. For
more information about NextEra Energy companies, visit these
websites: www.NextEraEnergy.com, www.FPL.com,
www.NextEraEnergyResources.com.
Editor's note: Link to b-roll of lineworkers leaving
Palm Beach International Airport
and traveling to Puerto Rico:
https://fpl.sharefile.com/d-s456c76c106946178
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SOURCE Florida Power & Light
Company