The City of Tallahassee, Fla., has successfully restored power to over 99% of customers who can safely receive electricity after three tornadoes ripped through town on May 10, the Florida Municipal Electric Association reported.
The remaining outages are in areas closest to the path of the tornadoes, requiring the greatest amount of work to clear debris, replace infrastructure and restore service. Some homes and businesses were so badly damaged by the tornadoes that they are not able to safely receive electric service. These customers are being reconnected as repairs to customer-owned electrical equipment are completed.
The three twisters, two of which were EF-2 packing winds of 115 mph traveling paths totaling 46 miles, caused unprecedented damage to Tallahassee’s electric grid. The City has replaced nearly 500 broken poles, far more than all of the poles replaced during Hurricanes Hermine, Irma, and Michael combined.
The City of Tallahassee’s restoration workforce, which included mutual aid assistance from Florida and four other states, has worked around the clock since Friday morning through difficult repairs and additional inclement weather to restore electricity to customers.
“FMEA sincerely thanks the tree and line crews from the City of Tallahassee, and the nearly 350 mutual aid line personnel from both within and outside Florida, for their yeoman efforts to get the lights back on for every last custom,” it said.
