When severe weather occurs, essential workers play a crucial role in aiding community recovery. Duke Energy has been honored with the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Emergency Response Award for its exemplary efforts during Hurricane Idalia. This award highlights the recovery and assistance provided by electric companies in the wake of service interruptions due to extreme weather or other natural disasters.
Recipients of the award were selected by a panel of judges through an international nomination process and were recognized at EEI’s annual meeting in June.
Dan Brouillette, EEI president and CEO, remarked, “Electric companies across America work tirelessly to restore power after severe storms and extreme weather events. Duke Energy’s dedication to quickly and safely restoring power to the communities it serves after Hurricane Idalia is commendable. Duke Energy and its storm response team truly deserve this prestigious recovery award.”
Hurricane Idalia, a powerful Category 3 storm, struck Florida on August 30, 2023, becoming one of the most damaging storms to affect the Big Bend region. It resulted in severe flooding, extensive damage, and significant outages affecting nearly 200,000 Duke Energy Florida customers. Thanks to advanced forecasting, damage modeling, and insights gained from previous storms, Duke Energy effectively deployed over 4,000 lineworkers, tree specialists, and damage assessors ahead of the storm. This proactive approach allowed the company to restore power to more than 90% of affected customers within 24 hours after the storm moved out of their service area.
“It is our job to have an effective plan in place to respond to restore power quickly after a major storm, and I am proud of the efforts of the thousands of men and women who engaged in this response,” said Scott Batson, Duke Energy chief power grid officer. “It is an honor to be recognized for this work by our peers and to have the opportunity to serve our customers and communities following a major storm when they count on us most.”
“When catastrophic storms strike, Duke Energy and others in our industry come together to do what we do best: restore power as quickly and safely as possible,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. “Our storm response plan is built upon decades of experience and improvement, but most importantly, close coordination with first responders, emergency management teams, co-ops, municipal utilities and peer electric utilities. We are grateful for this collaboration during Idalia, which helped shorten response times and get communities back on their feet faster.”