Linemen have reportedly restored power for roughly two million customers in Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian last week, the governor said on Sunday.
The powerful storm rocked Florida’s west coast as a Category 4 storm, moving its way across central Florida and exiting off the east coast. It strengthened back to a hurricane after being downgraded to a tropical storm and smashed the South Carolina coast last week, making a second U.S. landfall.
Prior to the storm, DeSantis assured that tens of thousands of linemen were ready to restore power when the inevitable occurred in the Sunshine State.
“#HurricaneIan is making landfall now. Florida is ready to respond. We have fleets of highwater vehicles, 42,000 linemen, 7,000 National Guardsmen and 179 aircraft prepared to help,” he said on Wednesday, providing updates on crews ready to respond:
The number of customers without power is now well under one million across the state, as roughly 600,000 remain without power. While the figure may seem high, this is down exponentially from “more than 3.5 million power customers affected by Ian since it hit Florida’s Gulf Coast on Wednesday as utilities restored service after the storm passed through their territories,” as Reuters reported on Friday.
In other words, over two million have reportedly had their power restored in the aftermath of the storm thus far.
“I’ve been able to meet with linemen from all across the country who are here in Florida helping out. … I think today they’ll pass over two million restorations for a storm that really — they started full statewide power restoration efforts on Friday morning,” DeSantis said during a Sunday press conference in Arcadia, Florida.
“So Friday, Saturday, Sunday — three full days and you have done over two million,” he continued, expressing gratitude.
“Obviously being without power for a little bit of time is still an inconvenience. Being without power for longer than that is, there is a real drag and we understand that and I’m just glad that there’s a lot of resources working to get that done as quickly as possible,” he added.
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However, restoration will be more difficult in some counties, such as Lee and Charlotte, as they essentially require rebuilding infrastructure, according to the governor.
“The Charlotte and Lee reconnects are really going to likely have to be rebuilding of that infrastructure,” the governor said on Thursday.
“But that’s going to be more than just connecting a power line back to back to a pole,” he added. “The other counties likely are not going to require the extent of the structural rebuild, but of course that’s going to be assessed as the day goes on.”
DeSantis campaign Rapid Response director Christina Pushaw retweeted the following on Friday:
The rapid restoration effort comes as some in the establishment media salivate over the possibility of DeSantis botching the response to the hurricane weeks ahead of the midterm election. However, that has not appeared to happen at this point.
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