Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast late Wednesday night, with devastating impacts from storm surge, flooding rain, tornadoes and damaging winds across many parts of west-central Florida. Winds hit 120 mph before carving a path of destruction through the Sunshine State.
FirstEnergy electric companies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and West Virginia are part of the mutual assistance effort.
"Employees are answering the call to help rebuild communities impacted by Hurricane Milton," said John Huber, Director of Emergency Preparedness at FirstEnergy. "These dedicated crews leave their own families for weeks at a time to support large-scale power restoration efforts, where their expertise shines in aiding communities to rebuild their power grids after severe weather events."
Nearly 430 FirstEnergy line workers and support personnel have collectively supported Duke Carolinas in North and South Carolina, Georgia Power in Georgia and Appalachian Power and American Electric Power in Virginia in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Helene made landfall on Sept. 25 with 140 mph winds and a tremendous storm surge, making it the strongest hurricane on record to hit the Big Bend region of Florida. As it moved inland, the Category 4 storm knocked out power to more than 6 million customers and decimated many communities in Georgia and the Carolinas with up to 30 inches of rain and historic flooding.
Nearly 100 of the line workers and personnel who assisted in the Hurricane Helene effort are now relocating to Florida, while the others will be released to return home in the next few days.
FirstEnergy is a member of multiple electric utility mutual-assistance groups that work cooperatively to restore service to customers when a natural disaster causes large-scale power outages. Mutual assistance allows utilities to pool their resources to help restore power to customers faster.
