According to AccuWeather's hurricane season experts, this 2025 season is expected to be above normal, and utility companies are preparing for whatever might happen.
00:00AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson joins us from Duke Energy's Florida headquarters in St. Petersburg with more impressive looking operations area behind you there, Ms. Leslie.
00:15Yeah, Bernie, you know, if anyone has been in a newsroom, whether TV or otherwise, it looks very similar to that.
00:22There are monitors all around me and all behind me. There is a flurry of activity here in the Duke Energy headquarters.
00:30This is the distribution control center, and this is where all of the crews are dispatched from in blue skies and in severe weather.
00:40So it's been a real interesting look behind the curtain, if you will, to see what they do here day-to-day in operations as they gear up for the big show, which, of course, is hurricane season.
00:50And as you know, these facilities are highly protected.
00:54This is, I can't even tell you where I am in St. Pete, not that I would, but it is a very secure area.
00:59They don't let the general public know where this is because of the security and of the sensitive nature of what they do here,
01:05which is to power two million customers here in the state of Florida.
01:09Now, Duke themselves will send crews out, depending on what's going on weather-wise, as you know, during those good days and bad, 365 days a year, seven days a week.
01:19We know that last year's hurricane season was a tremendous loss for the state of Florida.
01:25Not only did they get Hurricane Helene, but so did North Carolina.
01:29We have video that was shot up in North Carolina last year, just to remind you of the devastation, the scope of that devastation in North Carolina.
01:36You can see from some of this drone video that we have.
01:40And again, there are power crews that are dispatched in North Carolina from Duke as well.
01:44In fact, they have about four million customers in North Carolina, just under a million in South Carolina, and about two million here in the state of Florida.
01:52So about seven million customers altogether in these three hurricane-prone states.
01:58Last year, during the entirety of the hurricane season, about two million customers lost power in those three states at one point during the hurricane season.
02:06So it was a massive on-the-ground effort here at the DCC, as it's called, to dispatch the crews.
02:13But what they do here is use incredible technology to try and mitigate and get ahead of those storms.
02:19And they're watching the weather just like we do at AccuWeather in our headquarters every single day.
02:25And we talked to the communications director here at Duke Energy, and here's what she had to say about how they prepare for hurricane season.
02:32We plan well ahead before a storm even strikes.
02:38We, with our modeling technology, before the storm hits, have an idea of what type of infrastructure may be hit.
02:46We try to do a predictive analysis, trying to determine how many customers are going to be out.
02:51With that type of information, it helps us determine how many resources, how many linemen, vegetation workers, support staff are needed to help us then be ready to respond even before the storm hits.
03:05So Duke says that these preparations are, of course, year-round, as I mentioned.
03:12But they also note that June and July, the start of the hurricane season, can often be just as challenging as the height of the season, which, of course, comes later in September.
03:22Because many times folks are not quite into that hurricane mode that live in these hurricane-prone states.
03:28They maybe don't have their supplies ready.
03:30They maybe haven't got the hurricane kits done.
03:33They haven't maybe done the preps around their homes to get them ready for a system.
03:37And remember, it doesn't have to be a hurricane.
03:39It can be a tropical storm or even a tropical depression that can cause major damage to surrounding cities.
03:45So they really want folks to know that live in these hurricane-prone states here in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, along the southeast, Alabama, Louisiana, you know, all of those states, Gulf Coast states, to be ready because we are expecting those conditions any time over the next six months.
04:02You know, we're expecting above-average season, according to AccuWeather Forecasters.
04:06And the one thing they wanted to let people know is to make sure if you don't have your notifications turned on on your phone, make sure you have those turned on for your power crew.
04:14So you can find out if your power goes out, when it will be going back on.
04:17Reporting live from St. Petersburg, Florida, I'm Leslie Hudson.
