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Votes From FPL's Hurricane Sandy Crews Arrive Home First

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Among the thousands of Floridians who voted by absentee ballot are work crews sent up north to help get the power back on after Hurricane Sandy.  

Days before Hurricane Sandy hammered the northeast, hundreds of Florida Power & Light workers got in their trucks and drove north.  

The crews were deployed as part of mutual assistance partnership between FPL and utilities along the east coast.  

But even as they reset poles and hung new power lines from Virginia to New Jersey -- many were still able to vote from afar, thanks to a concerted effort by FPL, the largest utility in Florida.

"What we did was we had one person coordinate this effort out of a central location," says FPL spokesperson Sarah Gatewood.  "So we had all the absentee ballots delivered to this one person.  And they got it to the appropriate people to the field wherever they were in the northeast."

The utility didn't track the effort, so there's no way of knowing how many staffers voted from out-of-state.

FPL says the work crews have been making steady progress in the northeast, where the storm left eight million homes and businesses without power.  Within the next few days, many of the FPL workers are expected to return to Florida.

Christine DiMattei is WLRN's Morning Edition anchor and also reports on Arts & Culture.
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