So how does the Kissimmee Utility Authority brush itself off from restoring thousands of darkened local customers in the wake of Hurricane Matthew?By assembling a crew to go help restore power to others who got knocked powerless, of course.
For the second time this hurricane season, a KUA line crew loaded their trucks and went off to a damaged zone — Orangeburg, S.C. this time — to undo what Matthew did. They left Sunday afternoon, got orders around midnight, and got to work Monday morning.
About 2,700 KUA customers lost power early Friday morning, most caused by a downed power line in the Buenaventura Lakes area around 3:40 a.m. Service was restored before noon — it would have been sooner, KUA spokesperson Chris Gent said, but crews had to wait until winds dipped below 35 mph before they could begin repairing lines.
Crews also had to remove a tree that fell into power lines along Pleasant Hill Road that resulted in a small outage, as well as several smaller outages across the 85-square mile service territory. Orlando Utilities and Duke Energy also had operations that began after sunrise.
KUA was able to reopen its call center at 9 a.m. and customer service center at 11 a.m. Friday after successfully restoring power to all those affected by Matthew.
Friday night, the call came for help in the Carolinas as the storm moved north, and just as they took off to Tallahassee to help restoration efforts in Hurricane Hermine in early September, a crew of 11 linemen, a convoy of 10 vehicles and several thousand pounds of supplies were northbound by midday Sunday.
“We’re part of a state electric cooperative,” Gent said. “A call went out for help in the Carolinas, and once we knew we were good by Friday afternoon, we put together a crew to send.”
Gent said outages numbered 20,000 in the Orangeburg area Monday morning, but were down to 7,000 by the end of the day with KUA’s help.
“Inside the city limits we have lines down and poles snapped,” said Orangeburg Department of Public Utilities spokesperson Randy Etters. “The roads are impassable. There is a lot of vegetation that has been destroyed and it has destroyed a lot of infrastructure.”
Those who traveled from KUA include Brian Cutcher, Austin Franey, Aaron Haderle, Alberto Mercado, Tony Nasco, Luis Santiago, Willie Simmons, Billy Sutphin, Mike Taylor, Billy White and Jason Wright.
Orangeburg is located about midway between Columbia and the Atlantic coast.
