Barrier Islands

The ongoing efforts to restore power to our beach communities will continue throughout the day on Saturday. All main and branch power lines will be energized to each of our beaches by end of day. While this is a significant milestone, we recognize it’s only the first step in the process of rebuilding from Helene. We will be here and ready to promptly restore service to those who encountered significant damage as individual repairs and/or reconstruction is completed to those affected properties.

With another potential storm approaching the Gulf Coast, we are prepared to respond should we experience any impacts. We again thank you for your continued patience during our restoration.

Restoration is nearly complete to six beach communities with three others expected to wrap up later today. Many of our line crews are now shifting to Treasure Island and Madeira Beach, where we remain on track to restore service by Saturday.

Hundreds have already visited our customer care units at Madeira Beach, St. Pete Beach and Clearwater Beach for assistance. Our hearts go out to those who suffered losses far greater than just the loss of power. It’s been a privilege for us to connect with the beach community and see firsthand the resiliency of our customers in the face of devastating circumstances.

While our command center and the on-site care centers may wind down once the islands are fully energized, we will still be there for our communities as they rebuild. We thank you again for your patience and grace along the way.

Restoration remains on track with all of our main power lines now back on line. These primary lines are the backbone of the electrical grid that carry power from our substations to the smaller distribution lines that feed our businesses, condos and households. One hundred percent of the focus now shifts to repairing the smaller lines and damaged equipment that will bring service back to many over the next several days.

As work is completed for some of the beach communities, our line technicians will converge on other areas to assist. This will help accelerate the pace of repairs in the communities hardest hit.

Customers who currently cannot receive power due to damage to the property’s meter base, breaker panel or other customer-owned electrical wiring should contact their local municipalities for guidance on the steps required, which may include inspections once repairs are complete.

As a reminder, customer care units at Madeira Beach City Hall, the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce in St. Pete Beach and the Sheraton Sand Key on Clearwater Beach remain available to help customers with energy-related questions.

We will continue to provide updates until all of our beach communities are fully energized. While the restoration of service is a major step toward recovery from this historic storm, we recognize the work is not complete when power is back. We will continue to be there for each of our communities as you rebuild and greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve as your energy provider.

Our line crews saw another very productive day and were able to determine estimates on when we expect to have the majority of service restored for each of the beach communities. Customers signed up to receive outage alerts were provided with notification of the respective estimates for their area:

North Barrier Island

Clearwater Beach – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Belleair Beach – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Belleair Shores – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Indian Rocks Beach – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Town of Indian Shores – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.

Middle Barrier Island

Town of Redington Beach – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Town of N. Redington Beach – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Town of Redington Shores – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.
Madeira Beach – Saturday, Oct. 5, 11:59 p.m.

South Barrier Island

Treasure Island – Saturday, Oct. 5, 11:59 p.m.
St. Pete Beach – Friday, Oct. 4, 11:59 p.m.

In addition to the customer care units at Madeira Beach City Hall and at the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce in St. Pete Beach, a third customer care unit at the Sheraton Sand Key on Clearwater Beach opens today.

Our line technicians continue to work closely with local first responders to ensure a safe restoration as we began energizing the branch power lines that feed individual neighborhoods. We anticipate recurring outages to occasionally happen as restoration progresses due to equipment that may have been damaged from Helene’s record storm surge. Crews are prepared to quickly address these occurrences.

Customers who currently cannot receive power due to damage to the property’s meter base, breaker panel, or other customer-owned electrical wiring, should contact their local municipalities for guidance on the steps required, which may include inspections once repairs are complete.

We appreciate everyone’s patience, cooperation and kind words of encouragement while this work is underway. Together we have rebuilt from many storms before, and together we will recover from Helene as well. It will take time, but providing our resilient communities with power will be a big step toward helping accelerate the recovery.

Significant progress was made yesterday with our storm recovery efforts in the barrier island communities. The command center is being stocked with equipment needed for repairs to gain more efficiency and minimize travel back and forth from the islands. In addition, customer service stations have been set up at Madeira Beach City Hall and Tampa Bay South Chamber of Commerce on St. Pete Beach.

The immediate focus for the deployed restoration crews is to begin repairs on the main “feeder” lines that are considered to be the backbone of the barrier islands’ regional grid. At this time, 95% of this work has been completed. This is essential to ensure that we can bring service back to as many customers as possible, as quickly as possible. Equally important is the completion of our evaluation of damaged equipment so we can share general estimated times of restoration for each of the impacted communities.

These efforts are taking place simultaneously, as this evaluation helps ensure our crews have the electrical equipment required to rebuild the infrastructure. We have over 125 line technicians working day and night to get our communities up and running. We are also working with local first responders to ensure repairs and re-energization of branch lines are done safely. Because of saltwater infiltration from storm surge, there could be instances where power is restored only to go back out due to equipment failure. This is normal and crews are prepared to respond quickly to address these matters as they arise.

We greatly appreciate the patience and understanding of the residents impacted. You can continue to help contribute to an efficient restoration by allowing the line technicians to make the repairs without interruption. We know for planning purposes it’s important to keep our island communities regularly updated on the progress, and we remain committed to doing so.

The storm recovery mobile command center for the islands is being assembled and activated today. Crews are continuing to assess the damage across the impacted areas to ensure the materials inventory needed is onsite and readily accessible as our restoration gets underway.

Levels of localized damage vary, and certain sections of beach communities can be repaired more quickly than others that may require an extensive rebuild. In some circumstances, while damage to the property may be limited, damage to the grid further upstream may not yet safely allow for service to be fully energized.

We recognize an approximate updated estimate-for-restoration is important so you can plan accordingly. Please know that we are working diligently to fully assess the impacts to ensure that estimate is accurate. We graciously ask the citizens of the affected communities to allow our crews to complete this important stage of the process so we can arrive at those estimates as quickly as possible.

We want to keep you informed and are committed to providing you with ongoing updates as restoration gathers pace. We greatly appreciate your patience, and we will continue working feverishly to help our communities rebuild and recover.

Crews continue to work diligently to repair damage to the electric grid from the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene. Though we are making every effort to work quickly, the damage is so severe in both your community and those nearby that we must do a substantial amount of additional work before power can be fully restored.

We do our very best to ensure our estimated restoration times are accurate, but occasionally we need to modify those times as we gain access to hardest-hit areas and find more extensive damage. In major storm events, a comprehensive assessment can be delayed as we wait for debris to be cleared, water to recede, or roads to be accessible.

Once we gained bridge access to the Pinellas County barrier islands, it became evident that damage to the region was far more significant than what communities encountered on the mainland. We will likely need to rebuild portions of the electrical infrastructure on each of the islands. The amount of construction necessary varies widely, so precise estimates are not yet available. We expect it could be weeks, not days, before all service to these areas are fully restored. Not all sections of the islands were impacted equally, so we will continue to restore service for those who are able to receive power.

NEXT STEPS

We are working quickly to assemble a centralized command center at Madeira Beach. A restoration task team will be on-site to begin the process of replacing equipment, rebuilding parts of the electric grid and repairing the sections that remain structurally sound.

We will keep you informed along the way with adjusted estimated times for restoration and periodic updates on our progress. We will establish a dedicated webpage to provide the latest information. We will provide text and email updates to residents as well.

OUR COMMITMENT TO YOUR COMMUNITY

We realize you may have also incurred significant damage to personal property. Picking up the pieces after the destruction from Hurricane Helene’s winds and record storm surge will be a challenge for many. Just as you may be rebuilding homes and businesses, we are committed to rebuilding our electric system to return vitality to the islands as quickly as possible. As your energy provider and your neighbor, we’ve seen the impact firsthand, and we are here to do all that we can to help you and your community recover. You can expect to receive more updates soon.

After a major storm or other event where damage is significant, our damage assessors survey the hardest-hit areas and gather information for our repair crews in advance. This process helps ensure the assigned crew has all the materials they need to complete repairs efficiently once they arrive onsite. These assessors also help us determine where to dispatch our resources based on the level of damage in each county. This important role helps us provide better initial estimated times of restoration so our customers can plan accordingly.

After the weather clears from a major storm, it can take up to 24 hours to fully assess all the downed wires, broken poles and other equipment in need of repair or replacement. We use a combination of historical data, algorithmic tools and boots-on-the-ground to determine when we hope to have 90% of all customers back on. We adjust those estimates as our crews work. Sometimes the revised times are sooner than expected, but occasionally we run into additional damage or other problems that require us to move estimates later.

When repairs are made to a large outage affecting thousands of customers, that repair is considered “completed” in our system, which automatically triggers an alert to all affected customers. There may, however, still be a smaller problem that requires repair before power can be restored to your home. If your power is still out when you receive a “repairs completed” notice, simply reply OFF to let us know your power is still out. This will help us isolate the piece of equipment still in need of repair and get your power restored.

We work to methodically restore as many customers as possible with each repair following a major storm or outage event. That often means working on main lines first, and then moving into neighborhoods or side streets. In many cases, the problem causing your outage is not in your neighborhood, so your service might come back on without your ever seeing a truck. Another reason could be that there is additional damage to other power lines that supply your area, which must be repaired first before repairs in your neighborhood will make a difference. If you have reported your outage and you see it identified on the outage map, rest assured we have not forgotten about you.

It is not uncommon for neighborhoods to be supplied by different power lines entering from different directions. When this situation occurs, your home is likely fed by another substation, circuit, or transformer that is experiencing an outage.

Sometimes, depending on where the damage occurred, power supply can be rerouted to other lines and your power restored automatically using self-healing and remote restoration technology. But if damage occurs close to your home, or if there are not additional options nearby to reroute power, those capabilities may not be available. Every storm is unique in that damage may not happen in the same location or to the same equipment.

The information available on the outage map or in your alerts is often the same information our call center specialists have. We work hard to provide you with the latest information as it is available and will share updates through restoration alerts and on our website.

We maintain more than 100,000 miles of power lines and placing all of those lines underground would not be feasible when factoring in the costs it would incur on customer bills. Instead, we are using advanced data to identify the most outage-prone line segments and place those lines underground. Elevation changes, geological characteristics, and susceptibility to flooding can all be factors that prevent undergrounding from consistently being implemented as a practical solution. We are making a variety of improvements across our system to help prevent outages and restore power faster for customers. Targeted undergrounding of lines is just one of those improvements.

This is temporary and will correct itself. Once it corrects, it will reflect 0 kWh usage during the period you were out. This happens because the system automatically fills in gaps with historical data until accurate data is obtained.

Common causes are ongoing conditions that result in additional outages. Also, even after your line is repaired, crews may have to take a temporary outage to repair other lines or to make a temporary repair permanent to restore all customers.