Helping my brother in Florida (Hurricane Irma)

After days of screaming winds from Hurricane Irma my brother in Ft Lauderdale sent the text below. Any thoughts on the problem, ideas on what to do while waiting weeks for the power company, or general reassurance that I can text back to him would be a tremendous help. Thanks!

"Just as we went to bed last night the lights came back on. We thought FANTASTIC!! Then we here all these popping sounds and see these flashes of lights. I checked the breaker panel and 7 breakers are tripped. I flip them back on, all stayed on but one.

"Every time I flipped it on I would here a pop coming from another room and the breaker would trip. With Lory's help I found a power strip that would throw off a big white flash every time we reset the breaker. I unplugged it and 4 other breakers tripped.

"What is going on? I decide to turn the electric off at the main breaker and check it out. So I took my meter out to the box. The meter indicates we have 250 volts, that's a bit higher than normal but not so far out it should cause problems. I remove the panel door and test across the 2 legs and it shows 250 volts. I then check the first leg and the volt meter indicates 2 volts then it slowly climbs to 6 volts and stops.

"Uh Oh this doesn't look good. I check the 2nd leg and it's 250 volts. OUCH! Not good. So we are running our generator again to chill the refrigerator and we'll have to wait for the electric to get fixed. Can't call the electric company they are only taking calls for downed lines. So I will start putting things back and hope the electric company figures this out."