August 28, 2020
Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP
President, Chen Moore and Associates
Last week: I previously wrote about this as a concern, and this past week it happened. State Rep. Mike La Rosa, a Republican who faces term limits this year, was named last Friday by Gov. DeSantis to serve on the Florida Public Service Commission. The selection of La Rosa was over two other politicians and engineer Donald Polmann, who was seeking to be re-elected and was previously the only engineer on the commission. The five-member Public Service Commission regulates utilities and is expected to grapple with a series of high-profile issues in the coming years, including complex base-rate cases for electric utilities.
Looking ahead: After watching the destruction caused by Hurricane Laura in Louisiana and Texas this past week, we are looking at another two disturbances in the Caribbean in the coming week. When I was a child, my only knowledge of tropical activity was when storms became named and I used the Public Hurricane map and the latitude and longitude information provided to plot them on the refrigerator. In know that all this information causes stress to some – “not another two storms” – but I congratulate the advancements and warnings that lead to increase preparedness.