If a hurricane strikes South Florida this year, be prepared for prolonged power outages.
Little progress has been made since Hurricane Irma two years ago in dealing with the main culprit of knocked-out electricity: trees, vegetation and other debris being blown onto power lines. While Florida Power & Light is making its electrical grid more resilient to help restore power faster, the system remains vulnerable to damage from the massive amounts of trees and vegetation planted underneath or close to power lines.
Broward County came up with a possible solution last year, one that it said could be a model for cities and other local governments, but it was recently short-circuited by a lack of cash.
Commissioners passed a tough law in May requiring people living in unincorporated areas to remove problem trees and vegetation or face fines. It also restricted residents from planting trees near power lines, based on how tall the trees were expected to grow, using FPL’s Right Tree, Right Place program for guidance.
The county attempted to make the new rules palatable to residents, saying it would work with FPL to remove problem trees and foliage already too close to the lines before having fines kick in for non-compliance next month.
Instead, sticker shock set in over the cost of the work — estimated at $6.5 million just in the county’s small unincorporated area — and no agreement was reached with FPL for the work, Commissioner Barbara Sharief said.
“When they kept saying they couldn’t do anything, or do it quicker, I said just forget it,” Sharief said.
FPL spokesman Bill Orlove said the company follows a set schedule for trimming and clearing of vegetation near power lines. It would have had to alter plans elsewhere to do the work needed in the unincorporated area.
“FPL clears main power lines every three years and neighborhood lines every six years, on average,” Orlove said. “The company trims 15,000 miles of vegetation from power lines each year — the distance of a round trip from Miami to Tokyo.” It spends more than $60 million a year on tree trimming and vegetation management.
Sharief pushed for the law after personally enduring 10 days without power at her Miramar home following Irma. Sharief says she did her part by making sure her trees were trimmed appropriately, but that didn’t help because of neighbors who hadn’t trimmed theirs.
Almost 2.5 million homes and businesses lost power during Irma in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, roughly 90 percent of FPL’s customers.
The county is now looking for a different approach. It’s not going to put the removal cost all at once on homeowners.
“The cost was just insurmountable to take it out,” Sharief said. “If we let homeowners do it a little bit at a time, then maybe we can make some headway.”
The county plans to eliminate the fines it created last year and not punish people who don’t remove problem trees. It would prohibit the planting of new trees near power lines. A few incentives would continue: Trees endangering power lines wouldn’t need a permit to be taken down and they wouldn’t have to be replaced with another tree on the property.