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SECO Energy Braced for Hurricane Eta

The National Hurricane Center upgraded TS Eta to hurricane status Wednesday morning. SECO Energy has been monitoring Eta and its pending effects on the cooperative’s territory. Hurricane Eta’s track and landfall site have continued to change since the storm moved away from Central America last week. Forecasters now predict Hurricane Eta will make an easterly turn into Florida’s Gulf Coast with the potential to travel through SECO’s service area as a tropical storm.

 

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts shows that Hurricane Eta is about 145 miles south/southwest of Tampa with 75 mph sustained winds. On the forecast track, the center of Eta will move closer to the southwest coast of Florida today, approach the west-central coast of Florida tonight, and move inland over the northern portion of the Florida peninsula on Thursday. Eta is expected to move northeastward into the western Atlantic late Thursday or early Friday.

 

Projected landfall location is between Citrus and Levy Counties. Citrus County has announced school closures for Thursday. Currently, hurricane force winds extend 60 miles from the center. SECO’s forecaster predicts that Eta will bring heavy rains and wind gusts between 40 and 50 mph at peak to parts of the cooperative’s service territory. A storm surge warning has been issued for the Florida west coast from Suwannee River to Bonita Beach, including Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor.

 

cone eta hurricane

 

SECO Energy is StormReady and prepared to respond to power outages caused by Hurricane Eta’s rainbands and wind gusts. SECO employee and contractor line crews, as well as tree crews are staged across the system. Above normal rains in October have left some areas saturated. Additional rain from Hurricane Eta could cause outages from trees falling into power lines.

 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in mid-March, SECO Energy has taken the necessary precautions to ensure the health and wellbeing of its employees and contractors. SECO’s line crews and contractors are the key to preserving service reliability for the cooperative’s 200,000+ homes and businesses within its service territory. The COVID-19 protections instituted for SECO employees and contractors may slow restoration effort.

 

CEO Jim Duncan stated, “Our SECO storm watchers have been monitoring Hurricane Eta and its wobbling projected track since early last week. We’ve been lucky in Central Florida that the 2020 hurricane season has had minimal effect on our area. Hurricane Eta looks to change that trend. SECO Energy employees and our line and tree contractor partners are prepared to respond to outages from Hurricane Eta’s heavy rains and winds. The track, intensity and forecast of tropical storms and hurricanes often change, and we will keep members updated so they can be prepared.”

 

Duncan also reminded members that SECO Energy’s StormCenter outage reporting and communications platform offers outage alerts. He advises, “StormCenter is available for members to report new outages or check the status of an existing outage using their smartphones or tablets 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Members should also enroll in outage notifications and alerts via email, text or voice message, or all three. An alert is sent when the system recognizes that your service has been interrupted. The alert will include crew status, start time and an estimated restoration time. You’ll also receive a notification when service is restored, and we will include the cause of the outage if it is known at that time.”

 

Members should visit StormCenter and bookmark the site on their smartphones or tablets. On StormCenter, members can view the outage map, manage notifications, check the status of an existing outage, report an area light issue and more. Stay up to date on weather affecting SECO Energy’s service area, the latest news releases and cooperative updates by “liking” SECO’s Facebook page and “follow” @SECOEnergy on Twitter.

 

 

SECO Recovers Quickly from Hurricane Hermine Pounding

Late Thursday night and early Friday morning, Hurricane Hermine pounded SECO’s service territory with buckets of rain and high winds as it sped toward the Florida Panhandle.  In addition to the storms, WESH Channel 2 advised at least one tornado touched down in Sumter County near Webster. This event began a series of weather-related outages for SECO Energy members in the storm’s path.

 

At the height of the high winds and rainfall, approximately 7,500 members were without power.  As of 8 a.m. on Friday, the outages were reduced to under 3,000 members out. As of 7 p.m. on Friday,  SECO has less than 100 members without power.
SECO Energy, SECO Territory Pounded by Hurricane Hermine
Hurricane Hermine brought damage across the state, including broken trees and utility poles, flooding, roadway debris and at least one death in Marion County. Earlier today, NBC News reported that more than 250,000 consumers across the state are without power. Fortunately, most SECO Energy members weren’t affected with power outages due to an expertly designed, soundly built and well maintained system whose reliability is enhanced by an aggressive vegetation management program.

 

Vice President of Corporate Communications & Energy Services Kathryn Gloria stated, “SECO continually maintains, inspects and upgrades its system to provide the most reliable power possible to our members.  SECO is Storm Ready – it prepared well in advance for the possibility of Hurricane Hermine and its impact on our service area.  SECO continued to update members this week about Hurricane Hermine’s projected path and status and warned members to be prepared for outages if the storm made landfall near our area.”

SECO Energy, SECO Territory Pounded by Hurricane Hermine, power line pole being replace after major damage.

 

Part of SECO’s strategy included pairing a tree trimming crew with a line crew during restoration. As of 7 p.m. on Friday, there were less than 100 SECO members whose service has yet to be restored.  SECO is continuing its emergency restoration plan until every member on the system is restored. SECO predicts the remainder of members’ service will be restored before midnight Friday – unless additional storms on the tail of Hurricane Hermine come into play.

 

As a not-for-profit electric cooperative, SECO is dedicated to being its members’ first source for storm information. “Like” SECO’s Facebook page and “follow” the company on Twitter for the latest news releases and cooperative updates.