Duke Energy on Nov. 7 reported third-quarter earnings of $1.226 billion ($1.60/share), a dip of about 15% from the same period in 2023, as results were impacted by one of the biggest hurricane seasons to hit its territory in memory.

“I am proud of the remarkable response from our employees and utility partners to a historic storm season, including three consecutive hurricanes,” Duke CEO Lynn Good said in a statement. “Our team’s commitment to our customers was unwavering as they worked around the clock to restore 5.5 million outages as quickly and safely as possible and rebuilt large portions of our system in a matter of days.”

Duke’s multiple utility territories were hit by hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton this season, and it is expected to spend $2.4 billion to $2.9 billion on restoration in the Carolinas and Florida.

The costs impacted third-quarter earnings, but the work continues in the fourth quarter. Most of those costs will be deferred for future recovery in regulatory assets on the condensed, consolidated balance sheets or related to capital projects, the company said.

“My heart goes out to all of those who are directly impacted by these catastrophic storms, especially those who lost loved ones, homes or businesses,” Good said on a quarterly call with analysts.

The firm’s workforce had to repair its system while, in many cases, dealing with the impacts from the storms in their personal lives, she added.

“Our field teams rose to the challenge, working around the clock to restore outages as safely and quickly as possible,” Good said. “And our customer care representatives, corporate responders, community relations managers and state president offices worked tirelessly to keep customers and policymakers informed.”

Helene’s impact on Asheville, N.C., was unlike anything Duke has dealt with before, company President Harry Sideris said on the call.

“Over the three hurricanes, we assembled more than 20,000 resources from across the U.S. and Canada and restored approximately 5.5 million outages in some of the harshest conditions,” Sideris said.

Debby hit in August, knocking out power to 700,000 customers in Florida and North Carolina, though most were restored within a day, he added.

Helene hit both states a month later and impacted every one of the company’s territories, with the hardest hit areas in western North Carolina, upstate South Carolina and Florida’s barrier islands, Sideris said.

“The storm brought record-breaking rainfall and flooding, created landslides, and washed out roads and towns,” he added. In total, Helene led to approximately 3.5 million outages.

Then, as work to repair from Helene was continuing, a week later, Milton hit Florida and knocked out power to an additional 1 million customers there.

“Our success in responding to storms of this magnitude is due to our strategic preparation ahead of the storms, near constant communication with customers and stakeholders, and most importantly, the tireless work of our employees and utility partners,” Sideris said.

Meanwhile, Duke has been in the early planning stages of considering small modular reactors (SMRs), with Sideris saying some of its large customers are interested in using the technology to provide clean power for their operations.

“But any decision as we move forward, we’ll have to address three key items,” Sideris said. “The first one is the first-of-its-kind risk that exists, really, around the maturity of the technology [and] the supply chain. The second item is cost overrun protection, to protect our investors and our customers. And then our third is to make sure that we can protect our balance sheet [when] making these investments.”

Good also commented on the biggest story of the week when she congratulated President-elect Donald Trump for his victory.

“I think the U.S. economy will be a focus and a priority of his, and our industry plays an incredibly important role,” Good said. “So, as we look at what we’re doing here in the Carolinas and also Indiana and Florida, we are putting infrastructure in place in order to serve economic development and believe there are lots of opportunities to work together.”