(WBEN) - Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm with recorded sustained wind gusts of 150 miles-per-hour at the time of landfall. That makes Ian one of the strongest recorded storms to ever hit the United States, along with the likes of Hurricane Harvey, Katrina, Andrew and Camille.
As of Wednesday night, more than an estimated 2 million utility customers were without power as a result of the hurricane making landfall. With the storm still churning its way through Florida into Thursday, that number is expected to rise even more.
Once Hurricane Ian has rolled through the state and made its way North, that's when the recovery efforts start not only to restore power, but also to restore life across the region.
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"I can't speak for the people being impacted down there. We're thinking of them, as so many across the region are today," said National Grid spokesperson Dave Bertola.
It will be up to utility companies similar to National Grid across Florida and the Southeast to try and get life restored as soon as realistically possible. While getting power restored is only a slight part of the recovery effort, it will go a substantially long way towards getting every day life back on track.
In the past, National Grid has provided assistance in recovery efforts after natural disasters such as a hurricane. The company has even extended a helping hand to places like Puerto Rico, especially after Hurricane Maria that devastated the island in 2017.
But the extent of work they have provided in the past extends well past just hurricanes or natural disasters.
"At National Grid, we take emergency response very seriously, and we have very robust plans that we execute before an event. Then after an event, we take everything we've learned and we're in a constant state of revision and improvement to identify and create efficiencies," Bertola said. "We constantly have our eye on the weather, and we use that information from forecasts to plan out just what our response is going to be."
When it comes to the potential of responding to the recovery efforts in Florida after Hurricane Ian, Bertola says National Grid has yet to be asked to provide assistance or resources. However, as long as the opportunity presents itself to assist, they will be ready when needed.
"We would deploy our people and resources, if there are no other weather concerns or risks in an area where our customers can be negatively impacted," Bertola said. "In other words, if we had 25,000 people without electricity service here in Buffalo, Western New York, we would not deploy anyone to Florida, if asked. And again, we have not been asked. We would not deploy anyone until our customers had been taken care of first."
Bertola says it's hard to get a gauge of the type of response that National Grid can provide for a storm like Hurricane Ian, especially since the storm just hit and a formal request for assistance has yet to come down the line.
However, the timing of a formal request for assistance in Florida may not come for a while, as other utility groups will be called into action before other outside, long distance help is needed.
"There's a group called the Southeastern Electric Exchange, which is a group of utilities in the Southeast part of the United States. It's my understanding that they are the first ones that have been asked to respond, and they're ready to be deployed now to that region," Bertola explained. "Similarly, National Grid and NYSEG and other New York utilities are part of a group called the North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group. When there's a massive power outage - let's say there's something in Western and Central New York - we might be able to pull from resources from other parts of the Northeast that maybe aren't impacted. And likewise, that's what's happening in the Southeast right now, those other utilities are ready to pitch in. They're closer by, they can certainly respond a lot faster than someone like we could."
More of our conversation with Bertola is available in the player below:
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