TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) ensures that the state’s electric utilities are prepared for storm season. Today, the Commission held a Hurricane Preparedness Workshop, where each investor-owned electric utility reviewed its current storm season procedures, including the following PSC-mandated storm preparedness initiatives:

• Facility inspections, maintenance, and repairs;

• Vegetation management;

• Flooding and storm surge mitigation;

• Wooden pole inspections; and

• Coordination with other utilities, government, and community groups.

Presenting utilities were encouraged by the Commission to continue to improve the ways that customers can report outages in their area, including through the use of smart devices. “Even with the improved grid reliability in our state, customers may still experience disruptions in their power. We still want to encourage these customers to report those disruptions to their utilities,” said PSC Chairman Andrew Fay. 

The Commission also discussed how improvements in grid reliability have increased customer expectations that the lights will stay on. “Utilities are working hard to improve grid resiliency against hurricanes, but I believe that customers should continue to prepare for possible power outages during storms,” Chairman Fay continued. 

Following each named storm that impacts our state, the PSC aggregates the available data related to power outages and publishes this information on the PSC website.  The Commission has scheduled a meeting next month to receive an update from Florida’s Division of Emergency Management that will include information about customer available storm preparation resources. 

For additional information, visit www.floridapsc.com.

Follow the PSC on Twitter, @floridapsc.

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.