FPL’s storm-resilient power grid prevents more than 800,000 outages during active 2024 hurricane season

During this unprecedented storm season, Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton caused significant impacts across the state of Florida. Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) responded swiftly to each storm, restoring power to impacted customers in a matter of days. Just as importantly, FPL’s enhancements to the electric grid, including building stronger infrastructure, undergrounding power lines and deploying smart grid technology continued to benefit customers and helped to avoid outages and speed restoration.

FPL’s response:

• Smart grid technology helped avoid approximately 824,000 customer outages combined during these three storms.
• Underground power lines performed about 5-14 times better during these storms than their overhead counterparts.
• Stronger infrastructure, such as converting wooden poles to concrete structures, helped speed restoration times following each storm. Customers impacted by each storm were essentially restored within 1-5 days.

Looking back at this hurricane season: 2024 was a historic hurricane season. In fact, it was the sixth year since 1871 that Florida experienced three landfalling hurricanes in the same year.

• Hurricane Debby (Aug. 5): A Category 1 hurricane that impacted Florida’s Big Bend region less than a year after Category 3 Hurricane Idalia (Aug. 30, 2023) made landfall in the same region. Nearly 250,000 FPL customers were impacted by significant flooding, strong winds and storm surge along Florida’s west coast and north region. Customers were essentially restored in one day.
• Hurricane Helene (Sept. 26): A Category 4 hurricane that made landfall slightly west of Debby’s landfall nearly two months after the fact – becoming the third hurricane to impact that region in less than a year. More than 680,000 FPL customers were affected by the storm – which brought widespread damage throughout the Southeast U.S. Customers were essentially restored in three days. After restoring power to FPL customers following Hurricane Helene, we committed hundreds of lineworkers, contractors and support staff to assist with restoration and rebuilding across the Southeastern U.S.
• Hurricane Milton (Oct. 9): A Category 3 hurricane at landfall, Milton impacted Florida from coast to coast less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene. Areas across the state were affected by storm surge, flooding, strong winds and unprecedented tornado activity. More than 2 million FPL customers were impacted by Milton. Customers were essentially restored in five days.

A message from FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel: “This year was a challenging hurricane season for Florida and much of the Southeastern U.S. I’m proud of the way our team worked together and responded as quickly as possible to get our communities back on their feet. While this hurricane season reminded us that no electric grid is 100% stormproof, it also showed that grid hardening is making us more resilient during hurricanes and severe weather. Be assured, we will continue our year-round approach towards building a stronger, smarter and more storm-resilient electric grid and our teams will be ready for when the next storm strikes.”

Looking forward: The 2024 hurricane season showcased the importance and need for preparation. We encourage our customers to refine their emergency plans before the 2025 hurricane season approaches. Customers and all Florida residents can find useful tips on www.FPL.com/Storm.