09 September, 2017
"We have to wait until the winds subside to 40mph to get on the road, 35mph to get buckets in the air".
"No grid is created to be able to withstand a category 5 storm".
"Throughout the next few days, you're going to see bucket trucks from all over the country descending here in Central Florida", said OUC spokesperson Tim Trudell. Storms have been known to cross the Atlantic Ocean, although they tend to dissipate as they travel into cooler regions.
He emphasized that the company plans to continue to operate its plants during the storm, as long as it is safe, and get it back up as soon as possible.
Reuters provides more: "The Energy Department said late on Thursday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects Turkey Point to close on Friday evening and St Lucie to shut about 12 hours later, depending on the storm's path. ..."
FPL has a power plant station in St. Augustine.
The effects of Irma, which could be the most-destructive hurricane to ever strike Florida, are expected to be felt in south Florida on Saturday, with conditions worsening throughout the weekend.
Turkey Point, on Biscayne Bay about 24 miles south of Miami, saw off a Category 5 strike from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, sustaining $90million of damage in the process.
By midnight Friday, the company expects to have 13,500 crew members from Florida and dozens of other state - including California, Wisconsin and the Great Lakes - positioned at 22 pre-storm staging sites who will be ready to work on restoration as soon as it is safe to do so.
FPL said they won't have a good idea of the track on the storm - until tomorrow, or later.
"I'll do anything in my power to convince [people] this is a very serious storm". The plant suffered millions of dollars in damage, but remained functional. Turkey Point stands just 20 feet above sea level.
According to the FPL website, improvements included upgraded cooling equipment, diesel-fuel generators and pumps, and modernized communications (phone lines were lost at the plant during Hurricane Andrew). On Jan. 9, seven inches of rain fell in five hours at the St. Lucie nuclear plant, flooding an auxiliary building with almost 50,000 gallons of water that flowed through missing or degraded seals. Now if we have any damage to a plant it's prioritized.
FPL's nuclear plants are protected by thick concrete and reinforced steel and like many plants around the world were bolstered further after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Gould said.
They said there's a chance that up to 190,000 people in Orange and Osceola counties can go dark.
