Almost 300,000 customers in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina remained without power as of 9 a.m. Thursday, after Hurricane Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday morning.
Outage data was retrieved from poweroutage.us.
Utilities have already returned service to hundreds of thousands of affected customers. As of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, approximately 556,800 electricity customers were without power, according to the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities.
In Florida, more than 140,000 customers remained without power Thursday morning, with Duke Energy accounting for about 30,000. The utility said Wednesday it had already restored power to more than 135,000 customers.
“Our crews, contractors and support staff have made great progress restoring power to many customers today,” Todd Fountain, Duke Energy Florida storm director, said in a statement. “We know we have more work to do in our hardest-hit areas.”
There were about 10,000 customers remaining in the dark on Florida Power & Light’s system, after the utility restored power to more than 100,000.
“We understand how difficult it is to be without power,” FPL President and CEO Armando Pimentel said in a Wednesday statement. “We urge customers to remain vigilant, as conditions remain dangerous.”
In Georgia, more than 100,000 customers remained without power, with about three-quarters of those in Georgia Power’s system.
“We have begun our full-scale damage assessment, along with immediate restoration efforts to restore power to customers,” the utility said. “There has been significant damage due to high winds, heavy rain and fallen trees in the hardest hit areas.”
Georgia Power workers performed damage assessments overnight and the utility said it would “provide more accurate estimated restoration times by end of day Thursday for the hardest hit areas in the state.”
South Carolina and North Carolina accounted for about 45,000 outages Thursday morning.
“Downed trees and flooding can limit access and delay progress, but we will be working around the clock until the lights are back on for all of our customers,” Dominion Energy’s South Carolina spokesperson Paul Fischer tweeted.
Some smaller utilities were hard hit by Idalia. Electric cooperatives in Florida and Georgia reported more than 240,000 outages Wednesday, according to the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
Satilla Rural Electric Membership Corporation in Georgia had more than 10,000 customers without power Thursday morning.
“Our linemen have made outstanding progress as they worked through the night. We assure you that we will not stop working until every member has power,” the utility said in a Thursday morning update.
The National Hurricane Center said Idalia had been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved into the Atlantic.
