Nearly four days after Hurricane Matthew ripped up the east coast of Florida, more than 26,000 JEA customers were still without electricity, as of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The city-owned utility had announced Monday it hoped to have power back on for all but a few dozens special cases by midnight, then backtracked by evening and has not announced a new timetable. They said the massive amount of tree damage has delayed the process.
"Hurricane Matthew caused severe damage to JEA’s system. We currently have assistance from utilities in Florida and four other states, quadrupling the number of field crews doing electric restoration. We won’t stop until everyone’s power is restored," said JEA spokesperson Gerri Boyce.
Mayor Lenny Curry expressed his frustration with the utility Tuesday night, Tweeting, "For those without power. Deadlines missed not acceptable. U made decision based on expected restoration. I'll get answers."
At Tuesday evening's City Council meeting, JEA CEO Paul McElroy said he didn't have an excuse, other than that they thought they would be able to meet their 11:59 p.m. Monday deadline to have power restored.
"We blew it. We blew it in terms of thinking the progression that we were making and bringing people back, we had for the first time had taken on in the support and help of so many additional people that wanted to come in and help us. We accelerated where we thought we could be in terms of performance," McElroy said.
JEA had 72 crews working throughout the day and night to restore the remaining outages, including 1,600 JEA employees and 323 electric mutual aid workers.
Customers can go online to see the status of JEA power outages.
At the peak of the outages Friday evening when Hurricane Matthew moved away, more than half of Jacksonville residents were in the dark. As of Tuesday night, McElroy said, the restoration process was about 85 percent complete and power had already been restore to 210,000 customers.
JEA continues to ask its customers to exercise patience and that the restoration times on their website are not necessarily accurate.
Lights turned back on in other counties
On Tuesday, outages in St. Johns and Flagler counties fell below 1,000, which means 99 percent of homes and businesses had power.
Dozens of power crews from across the state and from as far away as Texas were working alongside local workers. It's part of mutual aid agreements that utilities have to work together to restore power after large-scale storms. They are helping repair power poles, remove trees, replace transformers and make sure power is safely restored as quickly as possible.
Clay Electric said it concluded restoration efforts before 10 p.m. Monday, having restored power to more than 73,000 members in a three-day period. The cooperative has ended its Emergency Operation Plan status and is returning to normal operating activities.
A combined workforce of more than 150 Clay Electric personnel and 650 construction and right of way personnel from other electric co-ops and contractors from around the Southeast U.S. were involved in the restoration effort.
“We appreciate all the hard work from our personnel and those who came to help us in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew,” said General Manager and CEO Ricky Davis. “We also appreciate the patience of our members during this difficult and challenging ordeal, and all the kind words of support expressed by our members.”
Any customer without power should report their outage at clayelectric.com or 888-434-9844.
Florida Power and Light had 1.2 million of its 4.8 million customers affected by Matthew. The utility had 250 crews in St. Johns County alone, and even used drone technology to survey the worst-hit areas. Once they complete outages in their territories, FPL crews were to assist JEA with restorations.
FPL customers can get current information about outages online.
By Tuesday evening, Georgia Power reported that there were only 56 customers without power in Glynn County and fewer than five Camden County.