POMPANO BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Can Florida Power and Light make good on its pledge to restore power to most South Florida homes by early this week? On Friday, 7News joined crews hard at work in Pompano Beach and Coral Gables neighborhoods.
7News cameras captured a rig from Florida Rigging & Crane, nicknamed Brutus, as it picked up a 40-foot, 1,200-pound pole to place in a backyard in Pompano Beach. FPL crews would go on to attach a transformer to the pole so they could restore power.
“In this type of circumstance, you’re getting into some of the projects, some of the jobs, that are much more labor-intensive,” said FPL spokesperson Richard Gibbs. “This is indicative of what you’d see when we go house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood, street to street in terms of the restoration process.”
When asked what the past week has been like without power, area resident Emma Markley replied, “Horrible. I think I slept maybe four hours in three days. That’s brutal, and then going to work, trying to be a normal human, so I’m happy it’s the weekend, and we’ve got some activity going on.”
Neighbor Hector Torres came up with an ingenious way of adding power to his flat-screen. “I’m running my TV from my car,” he said. “That way I can get in touch with my news.”
FPL used a drone in Coral Gables to assess their work.
The big question, as residents grew increasingly restless, is when will everyone have their power back?
Friday night, FPL revised those full restoration estimates to Monday in Broward and Tuesday in Miami-Dade.
As of 6 p.m. Sunday, there were still 88,350 power outages in Miami-Dade County and 23,230 in Broward.
Copyright 2024 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.