At 6:49AM on Monday, October 21st, power was disrupted to over 1,000 customers in Coral Gables due to what FPL describes as vegetation disruption.
Two of the customers affected were St. Theresa Catholic School and St. Philip’s Episcopal, which were forced to cancel classes. About half of those disrupted had their power restored a couple of hours later, but the issue was not fully corrected until approximately 5 hours after the incident.
Residents took to social media to voice their frustration, ” Am I the only resident entirely frustrated with the frequent loss of power to our homes? FPL cannot blame it on the wind nor rain this time. Power has been out since around 5am for over a thousand residents. Last time about 7 weeks ago it took over 6 hours to regain power. The issue is with a main line as before,” said Grace Louise Carricarte, a resident affected by this morning’s outage.
But residents and the schools were not the only ones affected today. Shortly after 12:30 this afternoon, businesses on Giralda Avenue were affected by another power outage. This one bringing the lunch rush to a crawl. Sixteen customers were affected by this outage according to FPL, and as of 4:30PM, only 5 had their power restored. FPL is still investigating the cause of the outage.
School officials have confirmed both schools’ power has been restored and the schools will resume their regular schedule tomorrow.
Why isn’t FPL trimming trees every yr – the way it used to? They used to come by every single yr. even to our back yards. Haven’t seen this service in more than a decade. What’s going on? Do we have to beg them now for cutting 2 branches from the tip of trees? …and that’s if they come, & then just cut 2 little ole’ branches from top & leave them all lopsided. As they say….”We are not arborists, nor cut trees…” What??!! Then a hurricane comes in and Kaboom! poles, trees, etc. fall on us. Our equipment is too old & has to be replaced either above ground or underground….and if it’s above ground, please someone out there – cut the vegetation & eliminate trees under the lines. It’s only common sense. Who’s responsible for such disregard to its citizens?
I am a Coral Gables resident for over 40 years , but about few years ago power outage in our area are frequently, every time you call them is the same answer ” is the main line, but “FPL is investigating the problem, and we will let you the findings”, but the problem remains the same. Coral Gables and FPL can do something to solve this problem?