Even for utilities accustomed to severe weather, Hurricane Milton has prompted Tampa Bay utilities to escalate their preparations this week.
While Duke Energy Florida often stations an army of power line technicians and other personnel at Tropicana Field, this time the company is placing most of its resources further from its headquarters in St. Petersburg. For Milton, Duke has rallied 16,000 crew members at The Villages retirement community in Sumter County, the Suwannee Valley Farmers Market near Live Oak and an auction site near Kissimmee, the company said.
Ana Gibbs, a spokesperson for Duke, said the utility did not use the Trop this time because of the risk of heavy damage in St. Petersburg, and that workers want to be as close to affected areas as possible without endangering restoration equipment .
“That’s where we feel it’s safe enough to put our crews, trucks and materials,” she said.
Instead, the inside of the Trop is filled with neat rows of olive-green camp beds that serve as a base camp for aid workers and rubble clearers organized by the state government.
Meanwhile, Tampa Electric has been preparing its Big Bend power plant in Apollo Beach, an area that could see the worst effects of the storm if Milton makes landfall near the mouth of Tampa Bay.
Tampa Electric has a flood barrier wall to surround the facility that can handle a storm surge of 15 feet. While forecasts are still subject to change, the latest models show the Tampa Bay area will experience a wave of up to 15 feet – which doesn’t take any waves into account.
Tampa Electric spokesperson Kim Selph said the company is prepared to close the plant if necessary.
“If storm surge rises to 15 feet and hits Big Bend, our generation will be paused to protect our systems,” she said in an email. “This ensures that we can carry out proper maintenance after the storm and restart the equipment quickly and efficiently.”
The utility would still have enough electricity for its customers without Big Bend online, Selph said, because it buys power from other sources.
Both Duke and Tampa Electric have warned that Tampa Bay residents should be prepared to live without power for several days. Duke is preparing for “over a million outages,” Gibbs said, as Milton moves through the major metro areas of Tampa Bay and Orlando.
On Saturday, Duke completed rebuilding portions of the power grid that were severely damaged by Hurricane Helene on Pinellas County’s barrier islands, Gibbs said, so all buildings that could receive power could be relit. If Milton were to attack that area again, that infrastructure would have to be replaced again, restarting the clock.
Even as Duke crews responded to catastrophic damage to the company’s territory in the Carolinas by Helene, Florida teams have received all the resources they requested, Gibbs said.
At a news conference Tuesday with Mayor Jane Castor, Tampa Electric warned that customers should be prepared for prolonged and widespread outages.
“This is the largest mobilization of utility workers that Tampa Electric has ever secured for our storm recovery efforts,” said Mary Lou Carn, a company representative. “Even with these preparations, a storm of this magnitude will cause significant damage and impact our infrastructure.”
Times staff writers Divya Kumar and Romy Ellenbogen contributed to this report.
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