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Power outages spread across Jacksonville area

Published on August 30, 2023 at 11:40 am
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Although Hurricane Idalia was causing limited damage Wednesday in Northeast Florida, power outages were rising rapidly across the region.

JEA reported 11,000 customers without power early Wednesday afternoon. Clay County Electric reported 35,537 of its 190,278 customers without power, according to PowerOutage.us, which collects data from utilities.

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Statewide, 278,313 people were without power, most in the Big Bend region. Florida Power & Light Co., the state’s biggest utility with 5.8 million customers, said 38,979 had no power.

JEA listed 41 outages in the area, with the Northside particularly affected. An outage near Capper Road in the College Park neighborhood affected nearly 1,900 customers. A few blocks away, an outage along Dunn Avenue left 2,000 people without power.

The number of people without power had risen significantly since 10 a.m. when about 500 people were without electricity.

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Earlier Wednesday, Pedro Melendez, JEA’s vice president of planning, engineering and construction, said that the utility’s fuel less stations and wastewater facilities were using backup power but that the overall system remained intact.

CEO Jay Stowe said JEA had 2,100 employees on duty, along with 500 from outside the area, to help get power back on as soon as possible.

“We’ll respond as quickly as we can,” Stowe said. “If you have generators, please use them safely and and stay off the roads to allow the folks that are going to be out there trying to fix this for us to be able to do that.”

If winds reach 40 mph, JEA crews will stop work because it is unsafe.


author image Reporter email Will Brown is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He previously reported for the Jacksonville Business Journal. And before that, he spent more than a decade as a sports reporter at The St. Augustine Record, Victoria (Texas) Advocate and the Tallahassee Democrat. Reach him at will@jaxtoday.org. author image Reporter, WJCT News 89.9 email Steven Ponson has six years of experience covering news in Jacksonville and Northeast Florida. Prior to arriving on the First Coast, Steven also worked in radio in Orlando. He attended the University of Central Florida where he earned a degree in radio and television. Steven has been a reporter, producer, anchor and board operator. Outside of work, Steven loves to watch sports, cook delicious cajun food (as any good Louisiana native does) and spend time outdoors.

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