By Matt Nauman
PG&E electric crews are on the ground in Central Florida, starting to make repairs and restore customers as part of the massive industry-wide mutual-assistance effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
They’ll replace broken power poles and cross arms and install new transformers and powerlines, the kind of work they do in California after storms and fires.
Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Fla., Wednesday night as a Category 3 storm. Milton moved across the Florida peninsula Thursday and over the Atlantic Ocean. At least 16 people died from the storm, which caused dangerous storm surges, strong winds, heavy rains, and flooding and spawned at least 36 confirmed tornadoes.
More than 2 million customers were without power in Florida on Friday. The PG&E crews are supporting Florida Power & Light (FPL), which had about 680,000 customers out as of Friday morning.
The PG&E base camp is at the Sebastian, Fla., airport. Sebastian is on Florida’s Atlantic Coast between Cape Canaveral and West Palm Beach. Safety tailboards have included information on the unique wildlife in Florida, including alligators.
The first work started late Thursday as PG&E crews were dispatched to help restore a critical customer. In all, PG&E has been assigned assessment and restoration duties for 13 circuits serving about 27,000 customers who are without power.
“We left California a week ago, heading to Georgia to help utility customers there after Hurricane Helene,” said Bobby Severson, Incident Commander of PG&E’s 400-coworker, 300-vehicle deployment. “We are now in a different state responding to the damage from a different hurricane, but our mission to safely restore power to customers who need it as a first step to getting their lives back in order remains the same.”
Those 400 coworkers flew out of Sacramento a week ago on Friday, Oct. 4. The 300 vehicles left from Davis a day earlier and arrived over the weekend. In response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, PG&E crews spread out to 60 work locations in Georgia to assist in the restoration process for Georgia Power customers. Then, after working in Georgia over the weekend, the PG&E contingent headed to Florida to wait out Hurricane Milton.
According to the Edison Electric Institute, an electric utility organization, PG&E’s electric workers and support staff are part of an army of more than 50,000 workers from at least 43 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada on storm duty in Florida.
Some of the PG&E workers had previously worked mutual-assistance incidents. For others, this trip to Georgia and Florida was their first experience with it.
Sandy. It was very rewarding. The people who we helped, you could tell they didn’t have much, but they were there and brought us coffee and when we did get the power back on, they were so grateful
Gavin Salcido, a Kern-based General Construction worker and a 19-year PG&E veteran, was part of the mutual-aid crews sent after Superstorm Sandy.
“It was very rewarding,” he said. “The people we helped, you could tell they didn’t have much, but they were there and brought us coffee. And when we did get the power back on, they were so grateful.”
As he was getting ready to board the plane in Sacramento last week, Gavin said crews didn’t know what they were going to be getting into.
“So, we just have to make sure we assess the situation so that it’s safe for us to work. And then we’ll do what we can to get the poles back up, put the lines back on them, and get the lights back on for the people who need it,” he said.