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Gov. Scott: More Fuel and Restoring Power is Florida’s Top Priority

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Power Restored for Nearly 2 Million Homes and Businesses

Governor Rick Scott today made it clear that Florida’s top priorities continue to be getting fuel delivered to gas stations and getting power turned back on for 100 percent of homes and businesses. While significant progress has been made on both fronts, the Governor will continue to aggressively work until every Floridian can return to work and their kids can go back to school.
Governor Scott said, “Florida is an incredibly resilient state and now it is time that we come together and rebuild. After visiting shelters this week and talking to people who evacuated due to Hurricane Irma, the number one thing I heard from families is that they want their power back on.
“We must make sure Floridians have the fuel they need to get home and back to work, and the electricity they need to live their lives. We are making progress on both fronts, but I will not rest until we are 100 percent recovered. While power has been restored to nearly two million homes and businesses so far, there is much more work that needs to be done. I have directed every state resource to help with these issues, and we are working with local officials, public and private utility companies and the federal government to fill gas tanks and turn on the lights.”
Utility Company Updates

  • The current power outage as of 6 p.m. is more than 4.7 million accounts. For a full breakdown, click HERE.
  • Since Monday afternoon, nearly 2 million accounts have been restored.
  • Do not try to handle downed power lines. Contact your local utility company to report it.

Tampa Electric

  • About 3,200 line, tree and other workers, from other utilities from as far away as the Midwest, Northeast and Canada, continue to arrive today to assist Tampa Electric, as part of the largest restoration effort in U.S. history;
  • In total, 425,000 of Tampa Electric’s 730,000 customers were impacted by the storm. At the peak of the storm, 335,000 customers remained without power;
  • Power has already been restored to 170,000 customers, or about 40 percent of those affected; and
  • Tampa Electric expects to restore power to essentially all customers the night of Sunday, September 17th.

Florida Power and Light

  • FPL has mobilized the largest restoration workforce ever assembled with more than 18,000 out-of-state restoration personnel working around the clock;
  • In total, 4.4 million customers were impacted by the storm. Power has already been restored to 1.1 million customers;
  • FPL expects power restoration to be completed for the East Coast the night of Sunday, September 17th; and
  • FPL expects power restoration to be completed for the West Coast by Friday, September 22nd.

Duke Energy

  • More than 12,000 restoration workers have been mobilized to quickly restore power to all customers;
  • More than 1 million customers were impacted by the storm. Power has already been restored to more than 375,000 customers;
  • Duke Energy expects power restoration to be completed for western service areas the night of Friday, September 15th; and
  • Duke Energy expects power restoration to be completed for central and northern service areas the night of Sunday, September 17th.

Gulf Power

  • Gulf Power has fully restored power to the 13,000 customers affected by the storm and has no storm related outages; and
  • Gulf Power has a restoration team of more than 150 personnel in route to Tampa to assist with power restoration for Tampa Electric.

Florida Electric Cooperatives Association

  • More than 760,000 customers were impacted by the storm. Power has already been restored to more than 318,000 customers;
  • Approximately 3,000 cooperative workers from Florida and nine other states are deploying to the hurricane impact zone to assist with ongoing restoration efforts.

Municipal Utilities

  • More than 800,000 customers were impacted by the storm. Power has already been restored to about 400,000 customers.
  • Restoration is expected to be completed by the night of Sunday, September 17th, except hardest hit areas, such as Key West, which will take longer to restore.
  • Several utilities such as Tallahassee, Kissimmee and Jacksonville Beach are close to being fully restored. In addition, several smaller utilities like Newberry are already 100% restored.

Fuel Updates:

  • All three of Florida’s major fuel ports are open and operational – Port Tampa, Port Everglades and Port Canaveral. Port of Panama City is also open and operational. Each Port is prioritizing fuel shipments and FHP is escorting fuel resupply trucks to gas stations;
  • Port Everglades has three fuel resupply tankers at berth and are working around the clock to bring more fuel into Florida;
  • Fuel trucks are actively filling and leaving the terminals to refuel gas stations;
  • Port Tampa will receive ten tanker vessels in the next 48 hours;
  • JaxPort is open to traffic on the landside terminals. Fuel trucks are actively filling and leaving the terminals to refuel gas stations;
  • The first fuel tanker arrived at Port Canaveral today at 2:30pm, and the Port will continue to receive fuel resupply.
  • Eleven states have joined Florida in waiving weight and driver restrictions to move goods more quickly into the state, including fuel.
  • The Jones Act, Florida’s gas tax and all weight and driver restrictions continue to be waived to expedite fuel delivery.

This week, the Governor took the following actions to expedite power restoration across the state of Florida:

  • Hosted daily calls with Florida utilities companies to make sure they were preparing resources and positioning restoration personnel to help get the power on as quickly as possible.
  • As early as the morning of Tuesday, September 5th, utilities were directed to begin contacting mutual aid partners and prepare to report outages as soon as storm impacts were felt. Utilities were also directed to identify any staging areas needed outside of Florida to ensure out of state linemen resources could be fully prepared for deployment as soon as conditions were safe.
  • At the direction of Governor Scott, Florida Highway Patrol is escorting utility convoys to areas in need to help quickly restore power, including escorting 600 utility trucks into Florida from the Georgia/Florida line into impacted areas of Southwest Florida. In addition, FHP is providing a security escort to 11 Panama City utility vehicles.
  • Governor Scott has directed Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) cut and toss crews to work alongside utility crews across the state to clear road debris so power can be restored quickly.

This week, the Governor took the following actions to expedite fuel delivery to gas stations:

  • Directed the Florida Highway Patrol to escort fuel resupply trucks to gas stations;
  • Waived the taxes on fuel trucks entering the state;
  • Gov. Scott and executive office staff have held daily calls with all fuel supply stakeholders, including Florida Ports;
  • Vice President Pence announced that the federal government has waived the Jones Act upon Governor Scott’s request, which waives additional rules and regulations to allow more fuel to get to Florida fast. This waiver ensures that all options are available to distribute fuel to Florida. The last Jones Act waiver was issued in December 2012, for petroleum products to be delivered for relief assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
  • Following the Governor’s request, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved an emergency fuel waiver which allows more fuel to quickly enter the state. For more information, please click HERE.

Power of Data to be Discussed at UCF Symposium Thursday

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In the past, the biggest threat from a data breach was to the individual. But now with the onset of Big Data, there are much bigger threats and even bigger opportunities.
Few people, however, understand what Big Data is or how it can be used, said Lee Odess ’99, vice president of UniKey and the keynote speaker for UCF’s Big Data Symposium on Jan. 26 at the UCF FAIRWINDS Alumni Center.
“The goal of my presentation is more or less to give real life examples of what Big Data is and the impact it can have,” Odess said. “Typically you are either supersmart on Big Data and have a hard time communicating it, or you are a person who has heard of it but isn’t too sure how to get started. My goal is to bridge the two.”
Practical examples of Big Data are everywhere and can be implemented by both big and small companies. For instance, a company can analyze marketing impacts via its social media reach; predictive analytics can narrow in on customers shopping preferences; or it can help analyze where a business should open up its next retail location.
Big Data’s role in our society is one of the reasons UCF’s colleges of Science, Business, and Engineering and Computer Science came together to host the symposium. UCF business professors Robert Porter and Amit Joshi, statistics professor Shunpu Zhang, and Ivan Garibay, director of UCF Research Information Systems and chief information officer at the UCF Office of Research and Commercialization, are among the speakers who will talk about practical ways companies, nonprofits and individuals can tap into Big Data to benefit their communities and society.
Odess was a natural choice for the keynote because of his familiarity with the use of Big Data within his own profession.
“For UniKey we didn’t wake up one day and say, ‘Hey, we need Big Data.’ We did however say ‘Hey, we need to start understanding exactly how, when, where our customers are using the locks and mobile applications powered by UniKey,” he said. “So we put the systems and tools in place to be able to collect every bit of data we could. Then once we had it, we spent the time to come up with the algorithms and dashboards to easily digest the information. Now, with a touch of a button we are no longer guessing how, when and where customers are using the product. We are 100 percent clear on it.“
In 2012, Odess was the director of sales operations for security company Brivo Systems, when he was watching Shark Tank on TV one night and saw fellow UCF alumnus Phil Dumas ’05 pitching his smart lock. It was the first time in Shark Tank history that all five investors wanted to buy into an idea.
Odess reached out to Dumas after the show and said that given their UCF roots and similar industries, they should get to know each other. Dumas agreed.
They kept in touch during the years, and when Brivo Systems was sold in 2015, Odess wanted to join a startup that had growth opportunity. He saw UniKey as that opportunity.
His day-to-day responsibilities as vice president include business development, human resources, participation in the overall strategy for the company and its existing customer base.
Dumas and Odess aren’t the only Knights with UniKey. Odess said 80 percent of the the company’s 50 employees are alumni.
“Initially people think we’re from Silicon Valley. When we tell them we’re from Orlando, we explain to them we have some hidden gems here, one of them being the university,” he said. “We look for people that want to be in this area. We think the school does a really good job preparing the students for work. It just makes sense. There isn’t a need for us to look outside what’s in front of our face.”
Odess speaks from experience.
Born in Cleveland, he grew up in South Florida before he moved to Pittsburgh, where he graduated from high school. He considered nearly two dozen universities and picked UCF because he said it just felt right.
“There seemed to be a lot of history to be written,” he said. “I liked that.”
The day after he graduated with his bachelor’s in business, he packed up his car and started driving toward Pennsylvania, where a job with Lutron Electronics awaited him.
After eight years with Lutron, he moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for a variety of companies, including several startups of his own, Fresh Confections and energy + light + control llc.
In order to become more acclimated to a new city, he rekindled his relationship with UCF by joining the D.C. alumni chapter.
Now that he’s back in Orlando, he is happy to have an opportunity to further his relationship with his alma mater by lending his time to the symposium.
“I’m proud of the fact that I have an opportunity to make a difference,” Odess said. “There’s a true partnership with the university – it has aspirations and goals, and I feel like it realizes that the people that have come out of it are going to help carry it in that direction.”
The Symposium will be held Jan. 26 from 6 to8 p.m. at the UCF FAIRWINDS Alumni Center. The event is free, but RSVP online is required. To learn more about the event, including a full list of speakers, click here.

FMEA assists with resources necessary to restore power to public power customers

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FMEA Assists with Resources Necessary to Restore Power to
Public Power Customers Affected by Severe Storms in Florida

As severe thunderstorms brought high winds, hail and significant rainfall to parts of Florida Saturday and Sunday, the Florida Municipal Electric Association (FMEA) assembled mutual aid crews from across the state to assist with power restoration in impacted areas.
Hardest hit was the City of Tallahassee, which experienced a peak outage of 30,000 municipal electric utility customers. Crews and service trucks from public power partners Kissimmee Utility Authority (KUA), Ocala Electric Utility, Beaches Energy Services (Jacksonville Beach) and JEA were immediately sent to Tallahassee to assist with power restoration efforts. As of 1 p.m. today, approximately 6,300 City of Tallahassee electric utility consumers remain without power and power restoration efforts continue.
Other Florida municipal electric utilities affected by the weekend’s severe weather include:

  • Ocala Electric Utility
  • Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU)
  • City of Leesburg
  • City of New Smyrna Beach
  • Town of Havana
  • Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC)
  • JEA
  • Lakeland Electric
  • City of Starke
  • Keys Energy Services
  • City of Blountstown
  • City of Lake Worth

Overall, approximately 50,600 municipal electric utility customers experienced a power outage at some point over the weekend. All have been restored with the exception of the remaining 6,300 City of Tallahassee electric utility customers (as of 1 p.m. on Monday, January 23).
As crews continue to quickly and safely restore power, it is important for residents to remember that there is still danger even after a storm has moved out of the area. Downed power lines and trees pose the most significant threats. The FMEA reminds residents of these important safety precautions:

  • Never, ever touch a downed power line or go near one. Always assume the power line is live.
  • Do not touch anything or anyone in contact with a fallen power line or other equipment.
  • If a power line falls on your car, stay inside the vehicle and call for help.
  • Do not pull tree limbs off power lines. Leave those for utility crews to safely handle.
  • Avoid areas with debris and downed trees. There could be live power lines hidden inside.
  • Also avoid chain link fences and puddles that could have become electrified by downed power lines.

During emergency situations, members of FMEA partner through a Mutual Aid Agreement that enables member utilities to call on each other for emergency workers and supplies. Florida’s public power utilities benefit from this strong network of partners within Florida and across the country through the American Public Power Association. These dependable connections have created a reliable system where member utilities both request and offer assistance.
The Florida Municipal Electric Association (FMEA) represents the unified interests of 34 public power communities across the state, which provide electricity to more than 3 million of Florida’s residential and business consumers.