This message alert from the Utilities Commission of New Smyrna Beach's website during Saturday night's power outage has not been updated.New Smyrna Beach -- An official with the Utilities Commission of New Smyrna Beach this afternoon was unable to provide information on how many customers lost power with Saturday night's lightning strikes that impacted a transmission line or even when it was fully restored.
Debra Simmons, executive administrator in public records, said all she had available at this time was a memo sent out to the commissioners shortly after 11 a.m. today, which stated: "Forwarding on behalf of the CEO/General Manager: The severe storm and associated lightning that moved through our area late Saturday (about 7:30 p.m.) caused FPL transmission lines to relay out but were then restored."
The memo continued: "Subsequently an outage occurred on the U.C.'s transmission line between Field Street and Smyrna Substations. The transmission line outage was approximately 20 minutes in length. There were additional numerous individual outages due to fuses and various other mechanical damages. The automatic phone call answering system was operational after finalization of system priorities and information was placed on the U.C.'s website."
Headline Surfer called the Utilities Commission after-hours hotline Saturday night after receiving calls from customers inquiring when power would be restored, but the 24/7 Internet newspaper was unable to reach anyone and there was no voice mail available.
A check of the UC's website gave conflicting information. One page said "There are no outages at this times" while another stated there was an outage, though it wasn't dated.
Headline Surfer was unable to reach the UC's public relations manager, Ellen Fisher, on her cell phone Saturday night, but left a voice-mail message that went unanswered. An e-mail was sent to her Saturday night, but that, too, went unansered, though a send/receipt showed the e-mail was opened early this morning.
The alert message at left stated there was no outage Saturday night when an alert on a different page of the UC's website said there was an outage.A phone message left with the PR manager at 1 p.m. was not returned, prompting Headline Surfer to contact Sessions directly by phone, 10 minutes later.
Headline Surfer asked why there is no protocol in place to provide basic details for media inquiries when there are after-hours outages like the media gets with Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy. Simmons couldn't provide an answer nor could she explain the conflicting outage alerts on the UC's website.
A page for press releases where media could get information on outages shows the last posted release was back on Nov. 23, 2011.Previous Coverage