3 days ago
Duke Energy prepares for hurricane season as many still recover from last year.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — The 2024 hurricane season in Florida was deadly with at least 27 deaths during Hurricane Helene and another 16 attributed to Hurricane Milton.
Thousands of people lost power for days, some for weeks and many are still working to recover and rebuild from the storms.
Inside the Storm: Hurricane Hunters save lives from the sky
This year, Duke Energy said they are doing everything they can to prepare in advance for the storms.
Duke said their dispatchers handle power outages big and small.
'We have the ability to have alarms here, within this building, within this room that lets us know that a problem may be urgent or emergent, so that our dispatchers know there is a problem coming up ahead,' said Ana Gibbs with Duke Energy.
She said technology is helping dispatchers narrow down problems to limit the power outages in specific areas.
'Before, let's say a tree hits a line, we may have experienced 2000 customers that lose power, and now we can isolate that down to just a couple of hundred customers,' Gibbs said.
She said Duke works all year to prepare for storms, cutting vegetation around power lines and inspecting them before a storm hits to help recovery after a hurricane passes.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
