The restoration effort moved with significant speed, reaching 95% of affected customers within 36 hours of the initial impact. While grid investments helped prevent thousands of extended outages, the storm’s intensity necessitated full-scale reconstruction in Escambia and Monroe counties. Field teams faced the difficult task of replacing broken poles and reconstructing wire spans in terrain often blocked by fallen timber.

Scott Moore, senior vice president of Power Delivery, credited the rapid recovery to a combination of predictive analytics used before the storm and the arrival of 7,400 mutual assistance personnel from 28 states. This labor force worked alongside local employees who, in some instances, performed repairs while managing damage to their own homes. Lineman Kaleb Fain noted that the personal toll of the storm made the collaborative effort to stabilize local communities particularly urgent. Beyond physical repairs, the company utilized automated grid technology to reroute power, preventing prolonged interruptions for 69,000 customers and effectively avoiding 11 million minutes of service downtime.