Hurricane Matthew to Test Resiliency of Utility and Communications Systems

Route Fifty: Hurricane Matthew, a Category 3 storm as of Wednesday afternoon, is set to test the resiliency of $2 billion’s worth of electrical grid upgrades made by Florida Power & Light has made to its power-delivery infrastructure since 2006.

The electric utility, which serves 4.6 million customers in Florida primarily along the state’s densely populated Atlantic coast, installed about 75,000 new poles and lines intended to prevent the widespread power outages that came with Hurricane Wilma in 2005. In some parts of the state, outages lasted for more than three weeks.

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