Power, where are you? It’s back for most, but thousands are still in the heat
Ninety-seven percent of Miami-Dade County’s Florida Power & Light customers and more than 99 percent of Broward’s customers had power by Monday evening, according to the utility’s data.
Just don’t tell that to the hot and frustrated.
As of 6 p.m. Monday, 32,880 homes and businesses were powerless in Miami-Dade County out of FPL’s 1.1 million accounts, according to FPL. In Broward, 8,170 were without power out of a total of 933,300 customers, and in Palm Beach County, 1,010 out of 739,000 were dark.
In Miami-Dade, outages continue in South Miami-Dade, south of Miller Drive, and a pocket of the northeast part of the county. In Broward, the outages are mainly east of U.S. 441 to the coast, according to FPL.
An FPL spokesman said on Monday that except for extreme damage cases, the vast majority of customers will see their power restored by the end of Tuesday. The Northeast Miami-Dade section north of 79th Street and east of Interstate 95 and all of Broward County was to have been restored by Monday afternoon.
Massive power outages began being reported more than a week ago when Irma side-swiped Miami-Dade and Broward with tropical-storm-force, outer-band winds. At one point, more than 80 percent of Miami-Dade and Broward were without power.
Patience has been drained as residents and business owners took to @insideFPL on Twitter to vent — or try to attract attention.
@insideFPL Can we get your attention pls!? 9 days no power and no help! No ticket estimate provided & no support available! #fpl #miami #rt pic.twitter.com/WI0j8ICoQ9
— Apure Lighting (@apuresystem) September 18, 2017
Harald Oechsner and Erin McNaughton of Miami Shores put a skeleton in a lounge chair holding a “waiting for power” sign in their front yard. “You have to keep a little humor still,” Oechsner said in a phone interview. Some of their neighbors have power back, but they were still waiting Monday afternoon.
Although they were encouraged by an FPL truck sighting Monday, they feel forgotten.
“It’s like living for eight or nine days in a sauna ... we have 96 degrees right now in the house,” Oeschsner said. “At first it was an adventure and then suddenly this is not funny anymore.”
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This story was originally published September 18, 2017 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Power, where are you? It’s back for most, but thousands are still in the heat."