VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – Thousands of residents across Florida are still without power after Hurricane Milton.
“This customer here. They had damage to their home. Their weather head. We’re going to replace their weather head and restore service to their house,” said JW Bitzer with Duke Energy.
He is one of thousands of lineman working tirelessly to restore power to homes impacted by the storm in Central Florida.
“Open that up. Close this switch. Energize this transformer and leave these transformers out until we get repair made. So we try to step restore,” Bitzer said.
[RELATED: Where Milton ranks among strongest Atlantic hurricanes | Strongest winds so far in Central Florida from Hurricane Milton | Download the FREE News 6 hurricane app]
It’s a job Bitzer has been doing for nearly 30 years.
“We live in Central Florida. We have afternoon thunderstorms that are pretty bad. Duke Energy employees in Florida are used to working in inclement weather. It is par for the course for us as utility lineman. We’re running outages every day,” Bitzer said.
He said they want the power back on just as bad as everyone else, but major storms like Hurricane Milton leave several safety hazards which slows down the process.
Thanks to lineman like Bitzer, Duke energy beat their goal to get power back to 95% of its customers in Volusia, Lake, Brevard, Marion, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and Sumter counties by midnight Sunday.
“There is a whole army of people like JW and this is what they do every day. They are getting the power back on. They satisfaction, knowing that the community is back on their feet,” Duke Energy Spokesperson Audrey Stasko.
Duke Energy is working on restoring power for the remaining customers. They’re also hoping the people understand the importance of Bitzer’s work and understand that many professionals like him help are helping rebuild our community.
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