Muscle car museum stages FPL crews working to restore power to Brevard after Nicole

Rick Neale, Florida Today
·3 min read

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One by one, heavy-duty pickups towed white "bunkhouse trailers" into single-file rows Thursday afternoon just west of the American Muscle Car Museum, forming the beginnings of Florida Power & Light's staging base to restore power to the Space Coast after Hurricane Nicole.

This marks the fifth time since 2017 that the 42-acre American Muscle Car Museum property has served as an operational response base for FPL contractors, equipment, vehicles and supplies after a big storm.

"They are expecting 73 of these sleeper containers," said Ed Dedick, museum operations manager, watching the tucks in action. "And they will have them pretty much in place, if not tonight, by first thing in the morning,"

The private Melbourne museum off Sarno Road is one of 11 strategically located staging sites deployed by FPL to move crews closer to Nicole's most heavily impacted areas, said Bryan Garner, FPL spokesperson.

"The food tent will be set up on the 12 acres just east of the museum," Dedick added. "What they usually do is serve breakfast and a to-go lunch for the workers. And then they will serve a good dinner. The expectation is they'll feed up to 1,000 people per shift."

Read more: All 16 Satllite Beach public dune crossovers damaged, shut down by Tropical Storm Nicole

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Sleeping quarters for workers begin to arrive at American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne on Thursday for electrical workers who will restore power to Floridians affected by Hurricane Nicole.
Sleeping quarters for workers begin to arrive at American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne on Thursday for electrical workers who will restore power to Floridians affected by Hurricane Nicole.

As of 5 p.m., FPL reported that 56,140 customers from its array of 331,250 Brevard County accounts still lacked electricity after Nicole's winds punished the area.

In total, 148,810 Brevard customers had been affected by Nicole. Crews had restored power to 92,670 of them by 5 p.m. The 56,140 remaining Brevard customers lacking electricity represented 53% of all of FPL's customers without power in the whole state.

"We have assembled a restoration workforce of nearly 13,000 men and women, including folks from 16 different states and as far away as Oklahoma, to come and help us respond and restore power (across the state)," Garner said.

FPL has assigned 44 line crews and 44 vegetation crews to the Melbourne staging site, Garner said.

Workers from Pike Electric restore power Thursday in Indialantic after disruptions from Hurricane Nicole.
Workers from Pike Electric restore power Thursday in Indialantic after disruptions from Hurricane Nicole.

"Most of the outages in this storm were caused by vegetation blowing into our lines. It wasn't a super-destructive storm similar to Ian, like you saw in the southwest part of the state," Garner said.

"Having those vegetation crews to help cut down trees that have fallen into our lines and remove the branches, that's been helpful to allow our line workers to do their job," he said.

Garner also said FPL officials have noted many soils remain saturated from Hurricane Ian's floodwaters, making the trees more vulnerable to Nicole's wind gusts.

"Staging sites like that (at the museum) and ones in the neighboring area are going to be working around the clock to make sure that we get everybody back on safely and as quickly as we can," Garner said.

When owner Mark Pieloch first opened his facility to FPL, Hurricane Irma had knocked out power for more than 307,000 customers across the Space Coast.

"You know, it's incredible how organized they are and how quick it comes together," Dedick said of the FPL "staging cities."

Sleeping quarters for workers begin to arrive at American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne on Thursday for electrical workers who will restore power to Floridians affected by Hurricane Nicole.
Sleeping quarters for workers begin to arrive at American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne on Thursday for electrical workers who will restore power to Floridians affected by Hurricane Nicole.

Dedick said he expects the staging site to operate for about five days. Thursday, personnel with the FPL Emergency Response Team and Disaster Resource Group of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, moved the first trucks, generators, cabling and equipment to the museum grounds.

In light of Nicole's unexpected arrival and FPL's restoration efforts, museum officials have postponed their annual Veterans Day open house from Saturday to Nov. 20.

The privately owned museum — which now houses more than 400 rare vehicles —will open free of charge for veterans, active-duty military personnel and their families during the open house from 3 to 6 p.m. Nov. 20.

Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Melbourne's Muscle Car Museum is FPL base to restore power in Brevard