MIami – More than 2.1 million customers have lost power in Florida with Hurricane Irma striking the state.
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Florida Power & Light reported the numbers Sunday afternoon. The utility, which services much of south Florida, says more than 845,000 of those customers are in Miami-Dade County.
Duke Energy, the dominant utility in the northern half of Florida, has about 13,000 outages with the outer bands of Irma sweeping across the region.
The power companies say they have extra crews on hand to try to restore power — when it becomes safe to do so.
FPL spokesman Rob Gould says an estimated 3.4 million homes and businesses will lose power once the worst of Irma reaches the Florida mainland.
Standby generators for homes (which are permanent generators), and which are powered from natural gas, or propane, have been around for almost twenty years. They cost only one fifth of what a new car costs; that being said, why is it that less than two per cent of all homes in the USA, have such devices? I bought a 14KW standby generator in 2012, following a long blackout, in the summer of 2012. Now, whenever my power goes out, within 15 seconds, it is restored. The generator will stay on indefinitely. It is not that expensive to have it serviced once a year, to change the oil and the filters. The battery lasts for several years, similar to an auto battery. Incidentally, since it was installed five years ago, I’ve had occasion to use it about six times. I have the only home on my block to have lights, heat, or a/c, when the power occasionally goes out. It is truly a mechaya to have such a device.