Sept. 28, 2004
NEW YORK (Reuters) - About one million customers remained without power in Florida early Tuesday after Hurricane Jeanne tore through the state over the weekend, according to two of Florida's largest utilities.
Jeanne landed near the city of Stuart on Florida's Atlantic coast late Saturday as a strong category three hurricane, knocking out power to 2.5 million customers at its peak.
It was the fourth hurricane to hit the Sunshine State in six weeks.
More than 600,000 customers of FPL were still without power though that was down from more than a million early Monday. FPL Group Inc. of Juno Beach serves more than four million customers in the state.
Jeanne also forced FPL to shut its 1,678 megawatt Saint Lucie nuclear power plant on Hutchinson Island as a precaution against the high winds that can kick up huge ocean swells and clog cooling water intake systems.
FPL said it hoped to have the two Saint Lucie nuclear power units back in service in about a week or so. One megawatt powers 1,000 homes, according to the national average.
Progress Energy Florida, a unit of North Carolina-based Progress Energy Inc., reported that more than 400,000 of its customers were still without electricity early Tuesday, down from more than 600,000 24 hours ago.
Progress Energy Florida, which provides electricity to more than 1.5 million customers in the state, said it expected to restore power to all customers by midnight Sunday.
By early Tuesday, the National Weather Service said Jeanne, which was moving through South Carolina, had weakened to a tropical depression but continued to dump heavy rains through the Appalachian Mountains and Mid-Atlantic region.
http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/429674|top|09-28-2004::08:52|reuters.html