Hurricane Wilma Chronology of Events

Wednesday October 19
As Hurricane Wilma – the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Caribbean -- continues to churn, FPL begins making preparations for a possible landfall in its service territory, urging customers that may be in the path of the storm to prepare and review their personal and business plans.

Though the storm is expected to weaken somewhat, the forecast from the National Hurricane Center indicates Wilma will make landfall in Southwest Florida and march across the state, touching a large part of FPL’s 27-county service area.

FPL personnel are busy contacting suppliers, arranging for additional restoration workers for mother parts of the country, reviewing employee storm assignments and reaching out to emergency management officials to review emergency plans that affect the critical infrastructure – such as police, fire, hospitals, communications, water, sanitary services and transportation -- of the communities the company services.

While the company has activated its resource acquisition strategy, the destruction caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf states is making it more difficult to acquire and deploy crews before Hurricane Wilma makes landfall.

Thursday October 20
FPL continues to monitor Hurricane Wilma as it moves slowly toward the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico before an expected turn towards Florida.

The company shares tips with its Florida customers about staying safe before, during and after a storm, how to report a power-related emergency and how our restoration process works.

Friday October 21
As Hurricane Wilma batters the Yucatan with Category 4 winds and torrential rainfall, FPL continues its own preparations as it braces for Wilma’s probable strike somewhere on the Florida peninsula.

The delay in Wilma’s arrival, while frustrating, has provided time for a number of out-of-state crews to arrive ready to respond once Wilma completes her visit.

Pursuant to its emergency plan, FPL engages its 72-hour pre-landfall activities. The logistics team increases inventory levels and alerts vendors and suppliers. Staging sites are pre-identified, state and county emergency centers are contacted as well as potential assisting utilities and contractors.

Saturday October 22
As Wilma makes its expected turn for Florida, FPL’s 48 hour pre-landfall plan is engaged. FPL’s computer models predict system damage, an initial restoration plan is developed and resource requirements are forecasted. Storm team managers continue securing commitments from restoration personnel and logistics providers. Employees continue to prepare their families and homes. Travel teams are identified.

Sunday, October 23
FPL’s General Office Command Center opens at 7 am, staffed by trained representatives of every function necessary to manage the rapid and safe restoration of power to customers.

At 24 hours pre-landfall, a final check of equipment, facilities and systems is conducted.

The 5,000+ combined restoration workforce of FPL and out-of-state personnel now pre-staged out of harm’s way to help once the storm clears FPL service territory is an all-time, pre-storm record-high number for FPL. Mobile inventory and trailers are readied.

FPL maintains close contact with county emergency operational officials; as of 1 pm, all county emergency operations centers (EOCs) in both west and east coast counties are open..

Geisha Williams, FPL vice president for distribution and the executive in charge of hurricane restoration, holds afternoon news conference to provide an update on company preparations.

In line with its commitment to provide to customers in a timely way more detailed information on when their power will be restored, the company tells customers today it will provide on Tuesday (24 hours after landfall) a projection as to when system-wide restoration would be complete, on Wednesday (48 hours) projections at the county level and Thursday and Friday (72 to 96 hours) times at the sub-county level.

Monday, October 24
Picking up speed by the hour, Hurricane Wilma makes landfall around 6:30 a.m. near Cape Romano, south of Marco, FL, as a major Category 3 hurricane. Hurricane force winds begin cutting a 180 mile wide swath through the southern part of Florida, making it a larger storm than most forecasters had anticipated.

As Wilma continues eastnortheastward through the heart of FPL’s service territory, hundreds of thousands of customers begin losing electric service.

Wilma batters highly populated Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties for a good part of the day Monday, severely damaging transmission lines and substations as well as distribution poles and wires.

The eye of the storm moves across Palm Beach County, clearing the state near Jupiter and Juno Beach at around noon. The hurricane’s fury impacts about 60 percent of FPL’s 35 county service territory, or about 22,000 square miles.

By 8 pm, 3,241,400 FPL customers are without electric service. This level of outages is the largest for a single storm in the company’s 80 year history, surpassing the 2.8 million outages recorded after Hurricane Frances in 2004.

Tuesday, October 25
As FPL conducts an assessment of damage to its electric system, it also begins its first full day of restoration. Yesterday as conditions allowed, and working through the night, crews by morning had already restored 251,800 customers left without powering Wilma’s wake.

A combined restoration force of 6,000 FPL and assisting crews is already in the field and the number of personnel is expected to grow steadily as additional resources are made available by neighboring states.

The company said it could take weeks to restore power to all its customers, although many will have power before then.

Though its assessment is still underway, FPL announces that it expects to complete power restoration to virtually all customers in the west coast areas of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte and DeSoto counties, as well as north of Brevard County on the east coast, by the end of Wednesday. In all other areas, FPL expects to complete power restoration to the majority of customers within two weeks – by November 8. Some 95 of customers in these areas should have power restored within 3 weeks – or by November 15.

Preliminary estimates indicate that the most damage to FPL’s electric system occurred in Broward and southern Palm Beach counties and, as a result, repairs in these areas will take the longest time to complete.

Wednesday, October 26
As it begins its second full day of restoration, FPL has brought back electric service to 541,400 customers. Restoration was essentially completed overnight north of Brevard County, one day ahead of what the company projected just yesterday.

The company reported that all but 85 of 241 substations damaged in the powerful storm already have been restored to service. Nearly 30 percent of community-designated critical infrastructure is back on line, including all major airports, Port Everglades and the majority of hospitals knocked out of service by Wilma.

FPL provides detailed estimated times of restoration by county and explained that the time to restore service is driven by the amount of damage a storm inflicts as well as available resources, and not just by the number of customers affected.

By the end of the day, more than 820,000 customers have their power back, including essentially all customers in and north of Brevard County and in the west coast areas of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte and DeSoto counties.

Resources in the field total 8,200 with 2,600 additional crews on their way.

Thursday, October 27
The company reports this afternoon that it has restored nearly 40 percent of those left without service in the wake of Hurricane Wilma and well as 60 percent of community-designated critical infrastructure. All but 10 substations are now back online.

Geisha Williams indicates that a more detailed estimated time of restoration by sub-county area will be provided as early as tomorrow.

Resources, now totaling 9,400 in the field (14,000 including support personnel), continue to pour into the state from not only the southeastern U.S. but many other states. Another 2,600 are expected to arrive continuously through Monday.

Friday, October 28
FPL President Armando Olivera tours the Tropicana staging site (Ft. Pierce) and the South Florida Fairgrounds (West Palm Beach) and Geisha Williams the Fort Myers Jetport and Pompano Harness Track. The two executives make brief remarks on restoration progress in those areas and answer questions from the media.

The company announces that repairs have been completed to all substations impacted by the storm.

Pursuant to its commitment to communicate restoration times at a sub-county level in a timely fashion, FPL announces more detailed estimated restoration times for 12 counties impacted by Hurricane Wilma. It also moved up some of its previously announced target dates.

As it ends its fourth full day of restoration post-Wilma, FPL announces that more than half of its customers now have their power back, more than one week ahead of forecast.

More than 75% of community-designated critical infrastructure is back service; as this is being done, crews also began to re-energize main power lines that bring electric service to much-needed grocery stores, gas stations and other service providers helping to get our communities back to normal.

Saturday, October 29
FPL enters the next phase of restoration, which is expected to be slower going in some areas, particularly in hard hit areas across Broward, north Miami-Dade and south Palm Beach counties.

With thousands of power poles damaged by Wilma and power lines down, the company proceeds carefully with the manually intensive, visual, line-by-line inspection of the distribution system in order to protect public safety.

FPL has now mobilized nearly 16,000 workers in the round-the-clock restoration effort.

To ensure crews are able to work most efficiently, FPL asks the public to refrain from stopping crews to ask them when power will be restored in their area, to clear the way for utility trucks when driving and to keep debris from their own clean-up efforts away from utility poles and transformers.

As it ends its fifth day of restoration, the company announces that 2 million customers impacted by Hurricane Wilma now have their power back, including 85 percent of the community-designated critical infrastructure.

Sunday, October 30
With continued good weather and the support of one of the largest post-hurricane restoration forces ever assembled, FPL advances restoration dates for the remaining one million customers remaining without power. It also says it expects to have 95 percent of all impacted customers back in service by end of day November 8, one week prior to its original estimate.

Crews are operating out of FPL service centers as well as 15 staging sites that have been set up in the most heavily damaged areas. The company plans to open three additional staging sites in the tri-county South Florida area soon.

By nightfall, more than 2.3 million or 70 percent of impacted customers have power again, including 90 percent of the community-designated critical infrastructure.

Monday, October 31
An additional 100,000 customers are restored overnight as FPL’s post-Wilma emergency workforce grows to 17,500 workers from 33 states and Canada. The restoration team is the largest ever organized in the company’s history to battle a hurricane’s aftermath.

Governor Jeb Bush and members of the State Emergency Response Team visit FPL’s Tropical Park staging site in Miami.

Restoration is essentially complete in Okeechobee and Indian River counties.

Thanks to good weather and crew productivity, FPL moves up projected restoration completion times for customers in six counties and parts of two others.

By 9 p.m., service is restored to 2.5 million customers, or 77 percent of those left without power by the hurricane of a week earlier.

Tuesday, November 1
FPL enters the next phase of restoration, which is expected to be slower going due to the heavy damage to smaller lines in individual neighborhoods and the difficulties often found in accessing the areas where repairs need to be made.

Wednesday, November 2
Though weather hampers crews today, power has now been restored to 80 percent of those left without electric service by Hurricane Wilma.

Restoration has been completed to essentially all customers in Lee and Hendry counties.

Thursday, November 3
Restoration is completed this morning in the remaining counties on the west coast. As work finishes in more and more counties outside the South Florida tri-county area, crews increasingly converge on heavily damaged Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The company urges customers out of power to carefully inspect their homes and businesses to ensure that they are capable of receiving power when FPL gets to their area. It asks customers to check circuit breakers and examine their power connection and meter outside for possible damage.

After another review of restoration progress, existing damage and available resources, the company again announces more specific restoration times for customers in all or parts of five counties, including more detailed information for hard hit Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Restoration is essentially completed tonight in Martin and St. Lucie counties on the Treasure Coast.

Friday, November 4
Geisha Williams visits four south Florida staging sites, visiting with restoration workers and receiving updates on crews’ progress. She and Marlene Santos, vice president of customer service later brief reporters.

Restoration is completed in a major portion of northern Palm Bach County; crews continue to zero-in on hard hit areas elsewhere in Palm Beach County, as well as in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Saturday, November 5
FPL continues its house-by-house, line-by-line phase of restoration. Because of the extensive and widespread damage from Wilma, there are many isolated outages that take more time to repair. In many cases, poles or line have been damaged, requiring tree crews to clear debris followed by restoration specialists to repair equipment, often in hard-to-access backyards.

By nightfall, nearly 2.9 million customers, or 89 percent, have their electric service back.

Sunday, November 6, 2005
Restoration continues in the hard hit areas of South Florida.

The company continues to urge customers to be vigilant about safety, an ongoing issue as important now as it was during and right after the storm.

By late afternoon, crews have restored power to 3 million customers – or 93 percent of those affected by Wilma.

FPL cautions customers that they may experiences delays next week in the completion of requests for normal, non-hurricane-related business such as the planning and installation of electric facilities at new locations. This is because virtually every FPL employee is involved in some way in round-the-clock post-Wilma restoration activities … the company’s first priority right now. The company asks for customers’ understanding.

Monday, November 7
Crews have now restored more than 94 percent of customers left without power due to Wilma, and expect to have completed restoration for 95 percent of customers by end of day tomorrow.

FPL advises customers as to why in some cases their neighbors across the street have power but they may not … and what those customers can do about it to shorten the time they may be without power.

The company also notifies customers that some may receive estimated bills because many meter readers have been performing storm restoration roles. FPL emphasizes that customers will only be billed for the electricity they actually use – reflecting days they were without power – and that if actual use differed from estimated use, their bills would be adjusted accordingly when the meter is next read.

At 5 pm, FPL announces that it has restored power to 3,080,200 customers or 95 percent of customers impacted by Hurricane Wilma, a day ahead of schedule.

Based on the pace of the work, the company updated its restoration times again.

It said Palm Beach County will be essentially restored later today except for customers in Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay, which will be essentially restored by end of day Nov. 10.

In Broward, the area west of I-75 and south of I-595 and the area north of I-595 and west of University Drive will be essentially restored by end of day Nov. 8; all other areas in Broward will be restored by end of day November 11, two days earlier than expected.

In Miami-Dade, the area south of SW 88th Street, in Miami-Beach south of 79th St. and Key Biscayne will be essentially restored tonight. The area between SW 8th St. and SW 88th St. will be essentially restored by end of day Nov. 10. The area north of SW 8th St. will be essentially restored by end of day Nov. 11.

Tuesday, November 8
At daybreak, 105,100 FPL customers remained out of power.

FPL asks for customers’ understanding as many will receive an estimated bill this month due to meter readers having assisted with the restoration effort. The company ensures that customers are only billed for the electricity they actually use, including taking account of the days they were without power. Any difference between estimated and actual usage will be adjusted automatically – when FPL reads that meter again.

FPL and assisting crews complete restoration in Broward County of the area west of I-75 and south of I-595 and the area north of I-595 and west of University Drive – and, in Miami-Dade County, the area between SW 8th St. and SW 88th St.

By end of day, all but 51,900 customers have their power back.

Wednesday, November 9
FPL tells customers that some may experience delays in normal business service. While the company does address normal business matters during storms, in times like these, disaster recovery and restoring power to customers in our damaged communities are FPL’s very top priority.

Thursday, November 10
As it nears completion of the largest service restoration operation in its history, FPL joined by assisting crews, presses on to restore power to the 10,100 customers still without power.

By nightfall, customers in Palm Bach County’s hard hit areas of Belle Glade, Pahokee and South Bay are essentially restored.

Friday, November 11
As crews essentially complete the Hurricane Wilma restoration effort, FPL reminds customers that personnel will be working throughout the weekend to bring power back to any customer whose damage may be more localized and severe.