In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in Florida, Norwich Public Utilities (NPU) responded to a mutual aid call from the American Public Power Association and dispatched employees and equipment to assist with restoration efforts.

“NPU was proud to be a part of the American Public Power Association’s mutual aid program and immediately responded to the call for assistance from our friends and colleagues in Florida,” said John Bilda, General Manager of NPU. “The organizations that we supported in September could very well return the favor in Norwich some time down the road.”

On September 10, our NPU employees headed to Danbury, CT and connected with nine other municipal electric companies in New England who sent crews to Orlando. They arrived at the command center of the Orlando Utility Commission (OUC) on September 12 and assisted with efforts to restore power to impacted customers for the next seven days.

NPU employees that traveled to Orlando were John Benoit, Grahm Andruskiewicz, Jeff Burgess and Tony Rizzi.

The OUC is the second largest municipal utility in Florida and the 14th largest municipal utility in the county. They provide electric, water, chilled water and lighting services to 246,000 customers in Orlando, St. Cloud and part of Orange and Osceola counties. OUC has approximately 1,100 employees and maintains more than 2,300 miles of electric lines and 1,700 miles of water lines.