SECO Energy is prepared for Hurricane Isaias as its projected track shifts east, tracking the storm slightly farther away from Florida’s east coast. Currently, Hurricane Isaias is a Category 1 storm with winds up to 85 mph.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasts that the storm will likely travel along Florida’s east coast toward the Carolinas. Isaias is moving northwest at 15 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend outward from the storm’s eye up to 35 miles. Tropical-storm force winds extend from the center up to 175 miles. The final track and intensity of Isaias remain uncertain, and the NHC has not ruled out a Florida landfall.

Forecasters predict SECO’s service area could begin to feel the effects of Hurricane Isaias as early as late morning on Sunday through the evening. Members should expect heavy rains for at least 24 hours and sustained winds in the 10 to 25 mph range with gusts up to 40 mph. The higher wind speeds are expected in SECO’s eastern part of its territory.

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 more than 200,000 homes and businesses the cooperative serves. The COVID-19 protections instituted for SECO employees and contractors could delay the restoration effort.

CEO Jim Duncan said, “SECO and its employees are prepared for Hurricane Isaias’ effect on our service area. We expect that members in the eastern part of our service area, particularly Lake County, will experience power outages from the heavy rains, wind gusts and lightning. Employees are on stand-by and ready to respond to outages. We will work until all members’ services are restored.”

Duncan also reminded members that SECO Energy’s StormCenter outage reporting and communications platform offers outage alerts. “StormCenter is available for members to report outages 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 and an estimated restoration time. You’ll also receive a notification when the service is restored, and we will include the cause of the outage if it is known at that time.”

Members should StormCenter and bookmark the site on their smartphones or tablets. On StormCenter, members can view the outage map, enroll or manage your notifications, check the status of an existing outage, report an area light outage and more.

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