After the drastic destruction of hurricane Irma, millions lost power due to this immense hurricane. According to Florida Power and Light (FPL), about 90 percent of impacted areas lost power. Florida’s largest electrical company, FPL, is getting threatened with a class lawsuit by two customers because of its delay in restoring power to its 4.9 million customers. Most notably, the cities of Coral Gables and Pinecrest threatened to sue FPL if it did not restore their power by the 17th. A week after Irma hit, thousands of people still had no power, resulting in multiple lawsuits. The two Miami-Dade residents have already announced their plans to file a class-action lawsuit against FPL for poor planning of the hurricane and poor use of their “resiliency” money.

FPL’s resiliency money is collected through extra fees from its customers to prevent major hurricanes from hurting the power grid and to quicken its restorations. Extra fees had been put in place after hurricane Wilma hit in 2005 in an effort to counteract future hurricane damage to the power supply. The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit believe that FPL has managed its money badly. In the past, FPL has claimed to have spent three billion dollars strengthening its power grid to prevent damage from future hurricanes. The company also claims to have restored residents’ power four times faster than in 2005, after hurricane Irma. In fact, during Wilma, 3.24 of their 4.3 million customers at the time lost power for an average of up to two weeks. After Irma, 4.4 million of FPL’s now 4.9 million customers lost power and the majority of it was restored within a week. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs argue that, with the extra fees collected by the company that its power grid should have been able to withstand the hurricane, not face a 90 percent blackout.

Hurricane Irma hit Miami as a category 2 storm, meaning the power grid should have held up. Yet tens of thousands remain powerless due to its power grid being hit harder by the storm.  Though a considerable amount of damage was fixed by the thousands of helpers sent from other states. After Wilma, FPL added extra fees so that the company could raise money to help strengthen its power grid. Now FPL has an average gross income of one billion dollars a year.