In Tallahassee, the utility company made a profit of $215 million during FY 2017. The profits then went into the city’s general fund, where the city commission can direct it towards unrelated projects. The Orlando Utilities Commission reported revenues of $865.1 million.
The cause for most outages in both cities are downed power lines due to high wind speeds and falling trees. Several cities in the U.S., in addition to cities outside of the country in hurricane-prone areas like Japan, all have invested in underground power lines. In addition, there are several other solutions to ensure that power grids are left standing in the wake of dangerous storms.
After Hurricane Hermine, part of the delay in restoring power to homes was a lack of skilled labor responding to the power outage. Republican operatives blamed Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D) for refusing Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) assistance in bringing in additional support. The Mayor’s office claimed that additional personnel would have been cumbersome. The reason was because the job required familiarity with the Tallahassee grid and other reasons.
