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Hurricane Irma: JEA bringing in more crews to help with restoration efforts

Thousands of JEA customers remain in the dark after Hurricane Irma ravaged the First Coast.

CEO Paul McElroy said at the peak of the storm, there were at least 284,000 customers without power. JEA says 81 percent of their customers have power right now, and McElroy said they are continuing to work that number down.

“We got 1,000 people working dangerous jobs, working 16 hours a day to restore service to you and the rest of the community. I know it’s difficult and I know it’s going to get harder,” McElroy said.

JEA has been bringing in more resources from across the country to help with restoration efforts. The utility company has brought in over 700 line and tree-trimming workforce additions and assures they will continue to grow until they get the job done.

McElroy said he does not have an exact time frame on when service will be restored to the just under 90,000 customers still left in the dark.

“We need another 24 to 36 hours of brute force restoration in order to be more precise in terms of when we can really look at restoration," McElroy said.

McElroy said after that timeframe and they bring in the necessary resources, they may be able to give an idea for those who might still be without power on when they can estimate time of restoration.

“Know that you have over 2,000 JEA employees that are focused each and every, not day but hour, every minute of every hour focused on restoration,” McElroy said.

McElroy said he did not have an exact timeline, but believes power will be restored in days.

McElroy said no JEA trucks were sent to Miami or South Florida, all of them stayed in Jacksonville in anticipation of the storm.

If there is a downed tree on public property, JEA will remove it. If the tree is on personal property, you will have to find someone to cut the tree and remove it and then JEA can restore the power.

Today's 5 p.m. news conference with JEA CEO Paul McElroy:

Posted by JEA on Wednesday, September 13, 2017