TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FOX 13) – A bill making its way through Tallahassee could lead utility companies to move their power lines underground, adding extra protection while helping to keep the lights on for more people after major storms. However, House Bill 797 could come at a cost to customers.
Hurricane Irma, which hit in September 2017, knocked out power for 6.7 million residents in Florida. More than a week later, thousands remained powerless.
Phil Sardin remembers the darkness and the humid absence of air conditioning as his St. Petersburg neighborhood waited for power to come back.
Phil Sardin remembers the darkness and the humid absence of air conditioning as his St. Petersburg neighborhood waited for power to come back.
“That was a long six and a half days. It was a week of misery, truly,” Sardin said. “You had to have a lot of patience and you had to try to block out the uncomfortableness.”
House Bill 797 is billed as the calm after the storm. If passed, power companies would be required to submit long-range plans to the Florida Public Service Commission to harden their systems. The plans would include bringing power lines underground, thereby reducing the number of outages and shortening the length of those that do happen.
On Monday, sponsor Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, told House Government Operations & TechnologyAppropriations Subcommittee that, “When the power is out, people can’t go to work, kids can’t go to school,” Fine said. “The estimate is a third of the state having lost power for one day costs one billion dollars, not in electric costs, but costs on our state in our economic output.”
Jim Martin, the Chair of the 60 Plus Association, told the panel that he believes all seniors, regardless of income, would benefit from this bill.
“Seniors know that planning and investment saves money in the long run,” Martin said. “In this instance, it means fewer outages and faster restoration times.”
Rep. Fine called the bill a “no-brainer” for the state’s long-term fiscal health.
