Families wake up without power after storms

Thousands of families were without power after strong storms occurred in Northeast Florida on Friday.

Joseph Fiedler was among those who woke up without electricity in Nassau County.

“I saw a lot of people huddled around in their coats and looked like someone made a coffee run so they had some coffee they bought. So just trying to make the best of it,” he said.

Fiedler said the power finally came back on at 11:15 a.m.

“It was a little chilly, no water, no lights,” he said. “It could’ve been a lot worse, so we’re blessed, just inconvenienced for a while.”

Action News Jax called JEA and learned 11,000 customers were without power because of downed trees and power lines Friday night.

Power crews worked through the night and nearly all customers had power by 6 a.m.

In Clay County, the outage map was down and some customers said they couldn’t get through on the phone to report outages.

Action News Jax called and emailed Clay Electric Cooperative and was told system issues had caused the company to take the map offline.

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The spokesperson said 18,000 customers were without power systemwide during the peak of the outage. Power was restored for all but 10 customers as of Saturday afternoon.

Families said the storms served as a reminder to prepare ahead of hurricane season.

“If there’s dead stuff over a roof or something, you want to get rid of it for sure because it will punch through a roof,” Jeff Weigand said.

He spent Saturday with his son clearing tree branches and debris from their Clay County property and he's encouraging other families to take a good look at their property before another storm hits.

Cox Media Group