After enduring a near knockout blow from an unprecedented Hurricane Irma, the lights and air conditioning is back on for the vast majority of Floridians. With that number, Hurricane Irma’s affects would be far more widespread than Andrew, a Category 5 storm, which hit Florida in 1992. Every county in Florida and Georgia, as well as parts of Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina, were impacted by Irma; but as of now, no significant outages remain in North Carolina, South Caroline, or Georgia. Experts also point to the fact that Florida utility companies have significantly hardened critical infrastructure facilities after lessons learned from Andrew. According to one source, Florida utilities have spent billions of dollars hardening the grid.

Source: Forbes September 17, 2017 01:59 UTC