How Winter Park fared after Hurricane Milton with buried power lines

WINTER PARK, Fla. — Six days after Hurricane Milton induced tornadoes and inflicted catastrophic flooding, the story is different in Winter Park.

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At the peak of Milton, only about 275 of the 15,000 customers did not have power.

That’s 2% of its customers, largely because about 80% of its lines are buried.

The work started about 20 years ago, hoping to improve reliability and aesthetics.

Read: Wolfbranch Estates residents in Sorrento blame nearby subdivision for making Milton flooding worse

“All the outages we had back in Irma, and in these last two storms, almost all of the outages are related to the overhead part of the system, not the underground,” said Randy Knight, Winter Park city manager.

But it’s not cheap to achieve this.

Winter Park uses rate money, the eighth lowest in the state, to re-invest about $8.5 million annually into burying lines.

Read: Operation Blue Roof applications open after Hurricane Milton

“The investor-owned utilities, they’re obviously responsible to their shareholders for the profits,” Knight said. “There’s 33 municipal-owned utilities, And so over the years, the community has made the decision on how they reinvest their profits.”

Duke Energy told Channel 9 that about 48% of its primary lines statewide are underground. Florida Power and Light has about 45%.

They have hardened grids with metal poles in vulnerable areas.

But unless state lawmakers pursue mandates requiring utilities to invest in more reliable service faster, we will continue to see outages after storms.

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