Eye on the Tropics

Power restored to more than 1 million Floridians after Hurricane Matthew

Crews are working overtime to restore power to the thousands of customers still in the dark after Hurricane Matthew.

Florida Power and Light shows about 19,000 in Flagler County are without electricity, down from the high of 54,000.

In Brevard County, which saw more than 225,000 lose electricity during the storm, 6,000 are still without power.

Volusia County accounts for a little less than half of the 59,000 FPL customers that were still in the dark Monday.

When the outages were at their worst, nearly 1 million FPL customers were without power.

Crews were hoping to get the main lines fixed by Sunday night, while smaller ones will have to wait.

About 18,000 Duke Energy customers were still without power early Monday, down from almost 250,000.

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Power crews from around the country went to Flagler County and set up shop at the airport. They then fanned out to replace the poles and lines that were destroyed by Hurricane Matthew.

“The worst of the wind, when it hit up to 80 to 85 miles per hour, everything was just sideways,” said resident Kathleen Nelson.

The National Guard passed out water and food for those running low on supplies and aren’t sure when they’ll have power again.

Nelson feels fortunate she didn’t lose much during Hurricane Matthew.

But thousands of fellow Flagler County residents have been in the dark since Matthew pounded the coast.

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David Bates, with Florida Power and Light, showed Channel 9 reporter Deneige Broom what the power restoration efforts like in St. Augustine.

Crews there are running into the same issues as workers in Flagler County, Volusia County and other spots on the east coast.

“We’re having to encounter areas, get into areas that were flooded and make sure they’re drained out, and then work on the areas where a lot of trees fell onto lines,” Bates said .

A smart grid system shows crews the areas with the most outages so they can tackle those first.