GOLDEN BEACH, Fla. – Residents in Golden Beach faced an unexpected challenge as residents endured a prolonged power outage lasting over 24 hours due to severe flooding in South Florida.
The outage, which left the coastal community in darkness, prompted concerns about the reliability of the area’s infrastructure.
Local 10 News spoke with Kirk McCoy, the public works director for Golden Beach, who revealed the presence of a significant hole where water had accumulated, potentially affecting underground utilities.
Despite investments in underground infrastructure dating back to 2009, McCoy shared the vulnerability of transformers to exposure from the elements.
“With this exposure, I hope authorities come and make sure this is getting taken care of,” he said.
Golden Beach broke ground on a new civic center in Golden Beach, which included the installation of a bunker intended for emergency responders during storms. However, due to the outage occurring during a rainy day rather than a hurricane, the bunker remained untested.
Golden Beach Town Manager Alexander Diaz underscored the gravity of the situation, emphasizing that the outage was unacceptable for a community with underground power infrastructure.
“This was just a rainy day event. What happens when there’s a real hurricane? FPL needs to invest in its system. For a community like ours, which has power underground, to lose power for 24 hours is absolutely wrong,” Diaz said.
SHARE YOUR PHOTOS: Flooding widespread as storms sweep across South Florida
Local 10 News reached out to Florida Power & Light, who said they are investigating but claimed the weather, not the transformers, was the cause of the outage.
FPL released the following statement Friday evening, which you can read here:
“South Florida has been battered by multiple days of destructive wind, excessive lightning and extensive flooding. The power outage in Golden Beach was caused by flooding that impacted the main power line serving the community, not an individual piece of equipment featured in the story. FPL crews needed to wait for flood water to recede before safely and quickly making repairs.”
As Golden Beach residents and officials awaited answers from FPL regarding the outage’s cause, concerns lingered about the community’s preparedness for future storms.
Despite uncertainties surrounding the outage’s exact origins, hopes remained high that repairs and maintenance efforts would fortify Golden Beach against similar incidents in the future.
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