Hurricane Matthew: All PB County power back by Saturday, FPL says

Oct. 08--Hurricane Matthew punched out the lights on more than 1 million homes and businesses, but the power should be back on by the end of Saturday for virtually all 100,000 hit by power failures in Palm Beach County, Florida Power & Light officials said.

The prospects were not quite as bright farther north. With winds still gusting in some areas, FPL was unable to say when more than 100,000 customers without power in Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties as of Friday afternoon can expect to get it back.

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"We have thousands of workers in the field and ready to work around the clock until every one of our customers has their power back on," said Eric Silagy, the power company's president and chief executive officer.

Meanwhile, the state's top financial officer said the damage could have been much worse in South Florida had the storm's eye crossed rather than skirted the coastline, but Matthew is still likely to produce tens of thousands of insurance claims.

"We're still going to have significant claims, but far less than we could have had," Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater told The Palm Beach Post. "We were really fortunate last night."

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Atwater said he was aware of anecdotal reports of roof damage and trees falling on cars. State-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. told Atwater it had received 47 claims in a morning briefing, but Atwater expects more to come as residents who were evacuated, for example, return to check damage.

Consumers with questions can call an insurance helpline Atwater oversees at 1-877-MY-FL-CFO (1-877-693-5236). Hotline hours have been extended into the weekend from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.

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Palm Beach Gardens-based Olympus Insurance Co. waited to see what claims would emerge as it figured about 52,000 of its 85,000 policyholders might have been exposed to winds greater than 30 mph -- with about 2 percent hit by winds up to 109 mph.

Disaster response teams are "positioned and ready to respond quickly" with help on matters such as tarping and tree removal, CEO Jeffrey B. Scott said.

By 3 p.m. Friday, about 33,500 of FPL's 732,000 Palm Beach County customers had no power. A similar number lacked electricity in Martin County and more than 42,000 went without in St. Lucie County.

Sustained winds of 110 mph were measured above the utility's St. Lucie nuclear plant, which was shut down as a precaution and suffered no known significant damage.

FPL expected to restore power to all customers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties and most in Palm Beach County by the end of the day Friday.

More than 330,000 homes and businesses statewide had seen power come back on by late Friday afternoon. Investments of more than $2 billion in recent years to make its system more durable have helped reduce restoration times, utility officials said.

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