Power outages beset Franklin County
Most Franklin County residents went to bed Tuesday night in warm houses but fully half of them awoke to cold ones, as a storm marked by freezing temperatures and sleet took out power lines from Alligator Point to Apalachicola.
Crews brought in by Duke Energy from as far as Inverness, Ocala and Milton streamed in beginning early morning, and began the task of restoring power that affected about 7,000 homes at its peak.
Jennifer Daniels, director of Franklin County Emergency Management, said Duke officials hope to have power restored by no later than 2 a.,. Thursday.
By 3 p.m. Wednesday, the crews had whittled down the number of customers affected by outages to about 3,702, based on 63 outages.
As of 3 p.m. ET, there remained 1,564 Duke customers in the Apalachicola area without power, and another 847 in the Eastpoint without electricity,
Between Eastpoint and Carrabelle, 88 customer’s were without electricity, while in the Carrabelle, area, 458 homes had no power. East of Carrabelle, 84 homes had no power, with no electricity available to about 250 homes in Alligator Point .
School Superintendent Steve Lanier announced Wednesday afternoon that schools would remain closed on Thursday, Jan. 23, due to expected low temperatures of 23°F and wind-chill temperatures in the teens during bus pick-up times in the morning.
“In addition, there is a possibility that icy road conditions, especially on our bridges in the county will be hazardous to drive on during the early hours of Thursday morning,” he said,
School will resume on Friday, Jan. 24.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.