Drew Wilson
Duke Energy brought in more than 4,300 outside workers to deal with a possible Hurricane Dorian landfall in Florida.
On Wednesday, the company said it “right-sized” its personnel resources and sent most of them home.
Duke Energy still has 2,200 crew members and contractors on hand in Florida to deal with any outages caused by the storm.
Last week, Hurricane Dorian was expected to make landfall in Florida, but the storm track shifted and it has remained offshore as it moves north toward the Carolinas.
A subset of the workers leaving the Sunshine State will head to North Carolina as the company prepares for a possible landfall in that region.
Yesterday, Duke Energy said it had about 9,000 lineworkers and support personnel stationed in North Carolina in advance of the storm.
That includes 5,000 Duke Energy personnel and another 4,000 workers brought in from 23 states and Canada.
As of 11 a.m. Wednesday, Dorian, a Category 2 hurricane, was about 90 miles northeast of Daytona Beach.
Forecasters still expect the storm to climb the coast and turn north this evening. The storm shouldn’t make landfall but will continue to deliver tropical storm force winds to the mainland.
Meanwhile, parts of northeast Florida coast can expect 4 to 6 inches of rain today from the storm today, and most of northeast Florida should expect 2 to 4 inches.
