FPL Pushes Back Restoration Time; Broward By Monday, Miami-Dade Tuesday

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Florida Power and Light expects to have all of Broward County's power restored by Monday and all of Miami-Dade County by Tuesday.

There are still hundreds of thousands of people living without power, in the sweltering South Florida heat.

FPL adjusted its initial restoration time, pushing it back for many, saying it will have power back on for everyone but a couple days later than originally extimated.

"We have significant investments in our system that has allowed us to benefit from technology and innovation," said FPL Communication Director Rob Gould. "But at the end of the day this is still a job of men and women who have to haul lots of equipment in this heat. They have to claim poles. They have to take wire with them. They have to restring it as they are standing on poles as they are 30-40 feet in the air in very hot and harsh conditions."

Even so, frustrated customers question FPL's ability to respond to the storm, or perhaps something bigger.

"We were ready for the storm," Gould said what unexpected issues FPL is facing. "This was the largest mobilization we've had in company history. It's arguably the largest in US history. We're regularly training for storms like this every year. We'll go through at the end of this for lessons learned. In this case, what you have is a significant storm. You can't forget just a few days ago you had a Category 5 approaching Miami and when it started to take its toll on the system, you had trees in many cases for the past decade Mother Nature has not cleared."

Blaming the number of trees and the unexpected extent of the damage is no consolation for those still without power and those with loved ones suffering in the heat.