Jacksonville Electric Authority restores power to 71,000 customers during Debby

JEA crews work on restoring power lines during Tropical Storm Debby. Image via JEA

As Tropical Storm Debby plows through inland areas on a route exiting into the Atlantic Ocean near Savannah, Georgia, the city of Jacksonville is in the process of recovering from the impacts of the Summer blast.

Jacksonville Electric Authority (JEA) has been able to stay on top of electrical outages for the most part. Feeder bands surrounding the center circulation of Debby were continuing to lash the First Coast well into Monday evening with sustained winds up to 25 mph and speeds up to 75 mph earlier Monday, according to the National Weather Service office at Jacksonville International Airport.

The impact from the storm caused several power lines to malfunction throughout Monday. JEA officials say more than 71,000 electrical customers lost service throughout the day in Jacksonville.

But as of 4 p.m. Monday, most of those customers had power restored as JEA crews were deployed throughout the city in a planned approach to restore power during the tropical storm warning.

“We are grateful for our team members who are out serving our community in dangerous conditions throughout the storm,” said JEA Interim CEO and Managing Director Vickie Cavey. “We appreciate our customers’ patience as we continue.”

While the majority of JEA customers with outages have had power restored, JEA workers will remain on the job throughout the Tropical Storm Debby event in Jacksonville that is expected to last into Tuesday.

JEA will reestablish its Customer Service Center on Tuesday at its downtown headquarters. There are still ways to contact JEA for customers in Jacksonville. They can visit jea.com/outage or call (904) 665-6000 to report electric or water outages. Customers also can text “OUT” to MyJEA (69532) to report their outage.

JEA officials said on the upside of the impact from Debby, the utility provider saw no sewer overflow issues during the storm and there were no water quality issues among customers as Debby passed through the area.