Energy

A Quarter Of Floridians Still Don’t Have Power After Irma

REUTERS

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Tim Pearce Energy Reporter
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A quarter of Florida’s residents are still without electricity after Hurricane Irma wrecked the state’s power grid.

Only 10 of 67 counties in Florida are not suffering from outages, according to data from FloridaDisaster.org.

Florida’s major utilities have assembled tens of thousands of workers to repair and replace damaged parts of the grid. While power has been restored to many since the disaster, a few customers may be without electricity for weeks before the utilities repair the most damaged parts of the system, Reuters reports.

Irma has caused 36 deaths in the United States so far, some of those due to intense Florida heat as residents without electricity are forced to go without air conditioning.

Eight elderly resident of a Florida nursing home died Wednesday. Temperatures reached a high of 86, but felt about ten degrees warmer in the facility without a cooling system, Fox News reports.

Over 100 people were evacuated from the building to a nearby shelter. Law enforcement have launched a criminal investigation into the deaths.

“We believe at this time they may be related to the loss of power in the storm,” Hollywood, Fla., Police Chief Tom Sanchez said according to Fox. “We’re conducting a criminal investigation, not ruling anything out at this time.”

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