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Around 13,000 FPL employees ready to restore power after Hurricane Dorian

Posted at 7:45 PM, Aug 29, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-30 04:35:36-04

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. - FPL is telling all its customers, now is the time to get your home prepared and be ready for power outages for an extended period of time following Hurricane Dorain.

As FPL prepares for the wrath of Dorian, the command center in Riviera Beach is now fully activated.

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“We’re also reaching out to neighboring utilities to try and identify more resources for what we expect to be a very dangerous storm,” said Bryan Garner, FPL's spokesperson.

Right now, 13,000 people are prepared for the restoration effort, but that number will likely go up.

FPL is monitoring Dorian’s every move and is lining up resources and deploying thousands of pieces of equipment once the storm passes.

“We have about 15,000 transformers within our system, 4,000 here on this property. We have about 27,000 poles across our system,” said Barry Wilkinson, the logistics manager for FPL.

Outside the Distribution Control Center, transformers are lined up and ready. There’s also three-million gallons of biodiesel to fuel vehicles, and 75,000 miles of wire on hand to repair downed lines.

But with Dorian still days away, it’s projected path is bringing many logistical challenges.

“One of them that we like to do is pre-stage equipment and resources where we think the damage will be the heaviest so that we can restore power faster,” said Garner, who added those places have not been identified yet.

FPL says it is closely monitoring Dorian’s track to know where to stage the equipment and workers for faster restoration times.