Following the 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Wilma, Florida Power and Light unveiled new ways to respond to storms this month to better assess damages and restore power faster.
FPL will now use mobile command centers to assess the hardest hit areas and establish local control following a major storm.
Tory Dunnan, FPL communications specialist, said the damage assessment tool allows crews to use smartphones and tablets to give information to FPL in real time, instead of handwriting assessments and typing that information into a computer.
Dunnan said FPL has learned a lot since Florida’s most active storm season in 2005, and the mobile command center is an invaluable tool during hurricane season.
“We would send it to the hardest hit area, and it would be in an area where about 12 to 15 people would work out of,” said Dunnan. The mobile command center also has [a] mast camera on top that basically allows zooming about a half mile on either side, so it allows us to get there, have this technology in place there, and then have our people working out of it to restore power really more quickly.”
Dunnan said FPL has also invested more than 2 billion dollars toward a stronger, smarter power grid to deliver electricity to customers faster.
Additionally, the command center gives real time information about crew members’ whereabouts, information about outages and which customers are without power.
Dunnan said Florida residents should not wait until a hurricane approaches before making a power outage plan.
“The biggest thing is if you have a generator, you should definitely get out there, read the instruction book now,” said Dunnan.
“Make sure that you’re operating it safely. Also, if you have any vegetation that’s close to power lines, we recommend having a professional come out and try to trim those trees back. You don’t want to do it too close to an actual storm coming through because you know then ultimately whatever you trim sort of becomes a projectile-type object.”
Dunnan also suggests families with members who are reliant on medical devices that run on electricity have a plan for charging medical equipment before any power outages occur.
Looking toward the future, FPL plans to use small, unmanned aircraft systems, or drones.
Working with The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), after a storm, the company can send up a drone to assess storm damages and power lines in hard to reach areas.
“It’s more cost effective,” said Dunnan.
“You’re not sending out a whole crew. There might be flooding, so you can’t even send out a crew, so you send out the one person, who obviously has to be a pilot, to get a sense of what needs to be fixed.”
Dunnan said he does not know when the drones will begin to be used.
FPL’s website has more information on becoming prepared for hurricane season.