Gulf Power is scheduling a power outage early Sunday morning for portions of Gulf Breeze to upgrade some equipment on a power line along U.S. 98.

Work crews will disconnect power from 1 a.m. until 5 a.m. Sunday morning for customers in the Gulf Breeze proper area, excluding the Gulf Breeze Hospital. Pensacola Beach will not be impacted.

“We are replacing the insulators and doing some other preventive maintenance work to strengthen our lines,” Jeff Rogers, Gulf Power Corporate Communications Supervisor said. “We appreciate everyone’s patience and by doing this very early on a Sunday morning, we hope to minimize any impact on businesses and residents.”

Gulf Power hopes the upgrade will prevent future outages in the area like one that occurred on April 12 after a portion of the line failed.

“We don’t like to turn the power off, but by adding this new equipment early Sunday morning we will avoid unscheduled outages which are much more inconvenient for our customers,” Rogers said.

To perform the work the southernmost eastbound lane on U.S. 98 will be closed for about a half mile west of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

“Letters are being sent to customers in the areas where we expect the outage and we thank our customers in advance for understanding that this work will prevent longer, untimely outages later,” Rogers said. “We will have crews already in place and prepared to go to work as soon as we turn the line off to make sure we work as fast and safe as possible.”

Gulf Power Company is an investor-owned electric utility with all of its common stock owned by Atlanta-based Southern Company. Gulf Power serves more than 431,000 customers in eight counties throughout Northwest Florida. The company’s mission is to safely deliver affordable, reliable and environmentally responsible electric service to our customers while working to improve the communities we serve. Visit online at GulfPower.com or on the company’s Facebook page, “Gulf Power Company.”