Hurricane Milton slams Florida, leaving 3.4M utility customers without power

About 3.4 million electric customers were without power in Florida on Thursday morning after Hurricane Milton hit the state’s western shore on its way toward the Atlantic Ocean, according to PowerOutage.us.

Milton, a Category 5 hurricane that slowed to a Category 3 by the time it made landfall, comes about two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused nearly 6 million power outages across the Southeast. About 63,000 customers still remain without power in North Carolina and about 35,000 customers lack electricity in Georgia in the wake of that storm, according to PowerOutage.us.

Florida Power & Light, a NextEra Energy subsidiary, reported that about 1.2 million of its 5.4 million customers were without power Thursday morning after Hurricane Milton crossed the state.

Tampa Electric, an Emera subsidiary that serves the area where Milton hit Florida’s west coast, reported it had about 594,000 power outages, affecting about 71% of its roughly 840,000 customers, on Thursday morning.

About 923,000 of Duke Energy Florida’s 2 million customers lacked power Thursday morning, according to the utility.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Energy issued an emergency order giving Duke permission to run its 1,640-MW Citrus combined cycle plant in Crystal River, Florida, as needed to meet electricity demand and protect the reliability of the electric system due to Hurricane Milton, according to the utility.

Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative, which serves an area north of Tampa, reported it had about 124,000 customers experiencing outages, and Peace River Electric Cooperative said it had about 54,000 customers dealing with outages.

To read the complete article, visit Utility Dive.