we have assembled a restoration workforce of 19,000. that includes fpl employees, contractors, and men and women for partner utilities from around the country. there are more than 30 states represented here today. we have line workers who traveled in at this site from as far as texas and oklahoma, minnesota, and north dakota. all to help florida respond to this challenge. now they are here to return the favor. we re very grateful for them for that. here at the processing site, these men and women will be briefed on the restoration challenges ahead. we will share our work and processes for storm procedures so everybody is on boarded and ready to go. they will fan out across the state and be positioned at 37 work bases currently close to
to respond to hurricane ian. we have assembled a restoration workforce of more than 19,000. that includes fpl employees, contractors and men and women from partner utilities from around the country. there are more than 30 states represented here today. we have line workers who traveled in at this site from as far as texas and oklahoma, minnesota, and north dakota. all to help florida respond to this challenge. there have been many times that fpl employees have traveled to other states to help them when they were in need and now they are here to return the favor and we re very grateful for them for that. here at the lake city processing site, these men and women will be briefed on the restoration challenges ahead. we will share our work and processes for storm procedures so that everybody is on boarded and ready to go. they ll fall out across the state and be positioned at 37
some of the more hazardous areas. you are also going to have power workers going in. we were just in lake city, i was thanking we had all these power workers, line workers from different states. i saw them from texas, louisiana, all these different places stage, we have a massive, massive mobilization. their job is to get in there and help restore services. you are also going to have folks bringing in things like food and water, so there s no need to rush back in. there is going to be a lot going on in the immediate aftermath and a lot of people s safety depends on that. you know, if you are on the roads, you are putting yourself in danger and limiting the ability of emergency crews to restore power and clean debris. we don t know how much debris is going to be, but there is going to be debris and that s going to make it very difficult to navigate some of these roads, that s why fdot s immediate mission is clear the roadways so people are able to go in and access that, to be able to
0 from the shoreline to the back bays and also to rivers inland. so, know your high tides. we are looking at the images, increasingly dire. stay inside as the storm approaches and wreaks havoc, pray for the charlotte county community and the rest of florida as we toss it over to america reports. john: any moment now we are expecting an update from florida governor ron desantis as the eyewall of hurricane ian begins to move on shore bringing with it the potential for catastrophic damage. hello, john roberts in washington. sandra, welcome back. sandra: good to be with you, sandra smith in new york. america reports, a quickly developing situation, ian expected to make landfall between 2 and 4:00 p.m. right now packing top winds of 155 miles an hour. that is just a couple miles shy of a category 5 hurricane. john: when you get that high it does not make much of a difference. forecasters warning of the storm surge could be as high as 18 feet as the eyewall comes on shore. sand
0 do on normal types of storms. and then having major structural damage to the underlying electrical infra structure. when you have a category 5 storm hitting potentially and massive storm surge, that is going to interrupt, most likely, a lot of the underlying infra structure. when fpl and other companies are going in, some of those tasks are going to be you ll have to rebuild some of this stuff. so the folks in those affected areas should just understand that if it s as simple as simply just hooking up a few more power lines that s what they will do. in those areas that will have the most severe impact it will likely require to have some reengineering, to have some structural fixes and that will require manpower but it is going to take a little more time. so people understand, fpl understands how significant and important this is to get the services back up and running. but we also understand the severity of this storm and the really, really catastrophic damage it can inflict on the