VERO BEACH — With hurricane Irma expected to bring significant damage to the area on Sunday and Monday, the City of Vero Beach Electric Utility Department has pre-planned how to restore power to the greatest number of customers as soon as possible.
Once the storm has passed and it’s safe for crews to work, the restoration process will begin.
Crews will first assess the damage, which includes physical inspections of the city’s facilities and electric lines. This assessment allows the city to direct its resources, both labor and materials, to the areas where they’re needed the most.
The next step is to repair the city’s large transmission lines that carry high-voltage electricity to the city’s distribution system from Florida Power & Light Co.’s interconnection substations. Lines like these must be repaired first along with any damage to transmission substations.
The transmission lines serve thousands of customers, officials said.
Next, crews will focus on distribution substations and their respective main feeder lines, water and sewer systems that serve hospitals, police and fire stations. The city’s electric distribution stations serve a range of a few hundred to a thousand customers.
Lastly, once the large impact areas have had power restored, crews will begin restoring power to individual tap lines. These tap lines carry power to houses or other buildings.
Stopping the crews to ask questions will slow down the assessment and the overall restoration effort, officials said. If customers have power on, they should leave on their front porch light or flood light because it will help crews focus their attention to homes and facilities where power still needs to be restored.
Customers can call the Electric Outage Center at 772-978-5000 to report power outages.
