Florida Power & Light is reporting massive power outages throughout South Florida, including Miami, Doral, Westchester, and Pembroke Pines. Reports of outages extended into Palm Beach, and across the state of Florida.

 

The outage hit shortly after 1 p.m., and at first appeared to be a local issue in South Florida. However, calls from across the state south of Orlando started complaining of power problems, and the scope of the problem quickly widened.

 

 

A Florida Power and Light spokesman told CBS4.com that that the utility is aware of the situation, but has no further information at this time.

 

 

 

The Miami-Dade Police Department said it is hearing that FPL is experiencing a massive transmission failure from Daytona Beach to Miami.

 

CNN reports some areas of Palm Beach county are without power.

 

 

The Florida Highway Patrol office in Doral, west of Miami, learned of the problem the way most people did, when the lights went out. Spokesman Lt. Pat Santangelo said the regional office does have telephone service, and troopers are still on patrol.

 

Santangelo warned that many traffic lights were darkened by the outage, and urged drivers to treat them as 4-way stops to prevent accidents.

 

Troopers were reporting widespread signal failures.

 

 

Miami-Dade Public Schools said schools have been locked-down, meaning children will be kept in their classrooms and parents will not be allowed to pick them up.

 

Some Broward County schools were without power, but a similar lockdown is not in effect there.

 

Widespread power outages have been reported across Broward and Miami Dade counties. Cities including Doral, Coral Gables, Miami, Weston and Pembroke Pines are without power.

LIVE |Massive Power Outages Across South Florida

LIVE |Chopper 4 Over South Florida- Massive Power Outages

Mine was just out @ work for about 30 mins. I work in Greenacres/Western Lake Worth

 

 

I saw what looked like a trauma-hawk helicopter land about a mile away and then about 10 minutes later went back up and headed southbound.

 

My intitial thought was that someone hit a transformer or something and knocked the power out and had to be rushed to the hospital

I still have power. Thank god BellSouth does too.

 

WSVN 7 just reported that CNN reported that 5 reactors went down at Turkey Point. Homeland Security says there is no concern of terrorism.

List of Florida Counties Affected So Far

Miami-Dade

Broward

Palm Beach

Monroe

Collier

Lee

Charlotte

Orange

Lake

Volusia

St. Lucie

Martin

Brevard

Putnam

Osceola

 

...we only have 67 counties in this state but FP&L only services parts of the peninsula with Gulf Power in the Panhandle, TECO & Progress Energy in Tampa Bay, and Individual Cooperatives/Cities all over.

 

Direct Sources:

Progress Energy - http://www.progress-energy.com/shared/outages/fla/index.html

 

 

Sources:

http://www.nbc6.net/news/15415071/detail.html?dl=mainclick

http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle....d=17818&z=3

http://www.wptv.com/content/breakingnews/s...e9-166ec3ffa421

http://www.wesh.com/news/15415366/detail.html

http://www.news4jax.com/news/15415671/detail.html

http://www.local6.com/news/15415494/detail.html

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local/st...5c-ab55f00caf09

Look for a baby boom in November/December.

Look for a baby boom in November/December.

 

 

:lol

wow it dark not thing :arms :beer :brigginbounce :cheers :elefant :jump :keyboard :rock :skippy to do so people get busy in bed

:lol :lol :lol :notworthy

 

 

I hope you guys make a lot of babies. Seriously. And get them in that ballpark, dammit!

FYI: Progress Energy and OUC/FPL in Central Florida (I'm on Progress, had no problems).

their talk that was man make mistake that cause for big area to be in blackout fpl and gov looking at it

(FPL probe will `take the time it takes') DOMINICK TAO AND JOHN DORSCHNER

jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

 

AP

Power is back up and running through downtown Miami on Wednesday. FPL still doesn't know exactly what caused the blackout that inconvenienced millions of people on Tuesday.

? More Photos

Slide show | Blackout, havoc in South Florida

Blackout puts play in the dark

FPL blames outage on substation fire, failed switch

Investigators on Wednesday morning were examining the substation that sparked Tuesday's massive power outage across much of Florida, but their findings may not be available for weeks, a Florida Power & Light spokesman said.

 

''It will take the time that it takes,'' said FPL's Mayco Villafa?a.

 

While a row of a half-dozen television satellite trucks recorded the proceedings, three FPL trucks and three or four workmen were inside the two-acre substation in West Miami-Dade, across the street from the utility's Miami-Dade headquarters.

 

Two metal coils near the center -- about four feet tall and a foot wide -- were singed brown.

 

Villafa?a said he had nothing new to report about the outage, which caused 475,000 FPL customers to lose power on Tuesday afternoon in a problem that cascaded throughout the state, resulting in a total of about one million customers losing power.

 

Maribel Rodriguez, a mail carrier who was in the area Tuesday when the substation failed, said it was a 'very high sound. A lot of people coming out -- `Did you hear that?' People were scared. People thought of terrorism. At least a couple in here,'' in the condominium complex near the substation.

 

''It sounded like a bomb, like you see in the movies,'' Rodriguez said.

 

Gorge Rios, a resident whose apartment is some six feet from the substation, said: ``I was here feeding my fish and then boom. I looked. There was a big light and everything went dark.''

 

Randy Clerihue, FPL's director of public affairs, said the fire was sparked by an apparent short-circuit in the switch, lasted no more than a minute and extinguished itself.

 

The substation fire should not have disrupted the system, but a disconnect switch failed for unknown reasons. Within a minute, nuclear generators at Turkey Point shut down, and the problem then spread throughout the state grid.

 

Herald staff writer Curtis Morgan contributed to this article

http://www.miamiherald.com/466/story/435588.html

noone i know, including myself, was affected by this so when i heard about it on the news i was so confused.

So the real cause of the problem is the failure of a redundancy function at the substation that exploded.

I know this is after the fact, but I fell out laughing when the rep from FPL was on TV saying if you have a power outage, you can go online and check to see when the power will be up and running again. Even the reporter from Channel 4 news was like, "Huh? If you don't have power, how can you go on line to check anything?"

 

This proves it's unsafe to be near power lines for an extended period of time. :notworthy