Gulf Power Crews Assist In South Florida Storm Response - WMBB News 13 - The Panhandle's News Leader

The power is back on for nearly all Gulf Power Company's customers impacted by Tropical Storm Debby.

According to a company official, most of the big outages have been cleared up, but crews are responding to scattered reports of power losses.

Now that restoration work in the Panhandle has been reduced to a minimum, Gulf Power will send about fifty employees to South Florida to assist with efforts to restore power in areas hit hardest by the storm.

At the height of the storm on Sunday, about 1,800 customers in the Panama City area lost power, said Sandy Sims, Public Affairs Manager.  Utility crews worked overnight and by Monday afternoon, the number of outages had been reduced to less than ten.

Sims said the utility's storm management team got a jump start as soon as conditions began to deteriorate.  "We were already reaching out to our sister companies... Alabama Power, Georgia Power and Mississippi Power... trying to reserve crews," she said.