CAPE CORAL, Fla. — This question is probably at the top of mind for a lot of people after Hurricane Milton: when is my power coming back on?
Fox 4 Senior Reporter Kaitlin Knapp sat down with LCEC's Incident Commander to talk about restoration efforts:
The sound of generators echo through neighborhoods across southwest Florida. Dave Collins lives in southwest Cape Coral and has no power.
"I came from Cape Cod Massachusetts," he said. "We have hurricanes, NorEasters, snow storms. It's not like this is new."
Power went out for him around 10:00 Wednesday night. He believes a pole across the street is the cause.
"They're aware of that particular pole right there," Collins said.
They even came out to assess it when Fox 4 was there.
It's a sight across southwest Florida, like on Burnt Store Road. Poles are leaning or snapped.
LCEC says some of the areas hit the hardest include the barrier islands and west Cape Coral.
"Progress is being made," said LCEC Incident Commander Allan Ruth.
He says two substations got hit. They quickly got Corbett Road to the Kismet Parkway substation connected. Pine Island over to Sanibel is under restoration. Ruth says the source power did well.
The main issues: downed lines and broken poles. He says only about 20 broke, but none of the main feeder poles broke.
"We're actually days ahead of where we were at with Hurricane Ian at this point," Ruth said.
Knapp talked to Ruth about a year after Ian — asking him what LCEC learned and what will be done differently for the next storm, like communication.
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"That's definitely something that we have improved upon," he said.
LCEC now has more outreach booths to meet with customers that have comments or concerns.
New this year: a base camp for the almost 1,800 linemen at the Civic Center.
"They don't have to shuffle them back and forth," Ruth said. "It just builds in the efficiencies of restoration."
As of Friday afternoon, LCEC says about 30% of customers have no power. Thursday night it was 52%.
Rather than looking at the outage map, LCEC says to check the "customers summary." It will tell you how many customers in specific areas do and don't have power.
"We're in the process of now putting together our restoration time," Ruth said.
He says historically with a Category 3, it would be a 3-week restoration event. However, that's not the case here because of more efficient methods and technology.
"It could still take a week or even beyond that for more severe damaged areas, into the two-week range in this event," Ruth explained.
The barrier islands could take longer because of the extent of the damage, plus the salt on the equipment.
In areas like where Collins lives, Ruth doesn't anticipate it being too long.
"We have to understand there is nothing we can do," he said. "They're working as hard as they can."
For an update on your restoration, click here.
