-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [STOP] FPL Letter re Emergency Response in Palm Beach
Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2002 01:56:59 EST
From: Deborahcourtney9@aol.com
To: stop@vrx.net
CC: riolinda@vrx.net

The following letter appeared in the Palm Beach Post on Monday, February 25.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL FPL CUSTOMERS

Dear Customers,

Mr. Pedro Grave, a local tree trimmer, sustained an electrical shock when the limb of a tree that he had cut fell on an FPL line. We apologize to Mr. Grave, the West Palm Beach Fire Department, and all of our customers for our delayed response to the accident.

We accept full responsibility for the delay and have now completed a thorough review of the facts. We have concluded that, while we had the right systems and processes in place to respond appropriately to such a situation, a series of human errors delayed our response to calls from the Fire Department.

We can neither condone nor tolerate such errors. We will be carefully scrutiniziing our staffing, training programs, and all of our procdures. And you have my commitment we will make whatever changes are necessary to ensure that we respond in a timely manner to future emergencies.

In fact, last Friday a team of FPL managers met with representatives from the West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County Fire Departments to review our emergency response procedures. We are committed to working in partnership with emergency response agencies in Palm Beach County, and other areas in our service territory, to streamline our communications processes and enhance our response effort.

Safety is a core value for FPL. We are dedicated to ensuring the safety of our customers, employees, and anyone coming in contact with our facilities. Our employees demonstrate this commitment every single day as they work to produce and deliver electricity to homes, schools and businesses. Overall we have had an outstanding safety record, and I can assure you that all of us at FPL will be working even harder in the future to maintain the highest safety standards prossible.

Sincerely,
Paul Evanson
President

an FPL Group company
 
 

Only one comment is necessary. 2 days after this ad appeared, it took FPL 48 minutes to respond to the scene of a traffic accident after frantic calls from 911 that there were hot wires in and about the accident scene. As reported, fortunately for the EMTs that decided they had to get the victims out of the car, the wires were not live.

I'm just glad I don't live by one of FPL's nuclear facilities. It's disconcerting to think that if the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada is approved for storage of nuclear waste, FPL will be responsible for transporting spent fuel from their 5 nuclear reactors in Florida to this site.  I'm glad I don't live in any of the states between Nevada and Florida!

Debbie C.
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