Under blue skies, officials at Florida's largest power company dealt Thursday with the aftermath of a major hurricane that slammed into Miami and Fort Lauderdale — or a pretend one, anyway. Florida Power & Light is conducting its annual mock hurricane drill this week, simulating how it would respond if a hurricane struck the state and devastated the power grid.
“Every day we don't have a storm is a day we are preparing for one,” said Ed DeVarona, FPL's vice president of power delivery. The National Hurricane Center is predicting the upcoming Atlantic and Gulf season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, will exceed the yearly average of seven tropical storms and seven hurricanes, and that three of the storms will be major. Not all hurricanes make landfall. In Thursday's drill, a computer simulated power outages.