More than 2.2 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power on early Thursday, after Hurricane Milton made landfall on the state’s west coast hours earlier, according to data from PowerOutage.us.
Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It has since weakened into a Category 2 hurricane, nonetheless still considered extremely dangerous.
The utility with the most customers hit was Florida Power & Light Company, which has about 768,132 clients without power, followed by Duke Energy, which has 624,885 clients without power.
“Customers should be prepared for extended outages. The unprecedented storm’s catastrophic conditions and recent heavy rain will likely cause significant damage and restoration challenges,” said Florida Power & Light Company. The company added that it has a restoration workforce of more than 17,000 people and has pre-positioned crews throughout the state.
Over 109,000 customers in Georgia and North Carolina were still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helen. Helene, which killed more than 200 people across six states, was the deadliest named storm to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005.
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