Florida power outage map: Nearly 2.5 million without power after Hurricane Milton
Editor's Note: Click here for the latest on power outages in Florida for Friday Oct. 11.
Nearly 2.5 million people are without power after Hurricane Milton swept through Florida on Wednesday and Thursday.
The storm made landfall in the state on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, the storm left Florida through its east coast and headed toward the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean.
As of 9:00 p.m. ET, approximately 2,467,000 customers, primarily across Central Florida, are in the dark, according to data from USA TODAY's power outage tracker. That number was at over 3 million earlier on Thursday.
In Hillsborough County, where Tampa is, around 502,000 are without power, making it the county with the highest number of outages in Florida.
In Manatee County, near where the eye of the hurricane made landfall, about 142,000 customers lost power.
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Hurricane Milton tracker: Storm exits Florida at Category 1 strength after slamming west coast
Florida power outage map
When will power come back?
Floridians could "experience longer than normal restoration times following the storm," according to Florida Power and Light Company, FPL.
"FPL crews will restore power between bands of severe weather as long as it is safe," the company stated in a press release on Wednesday.
Before the storm made landfall, Floridians were asked to rush to prepare for long-duration power outages.
"As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida’s west coast, Duke Energy Florida is urging its customers to prepare for this catastrophic storm and a lengthy power restoration process that will result in extended outages," Duke Energy stated on its website, which provides electricity to 8.4 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.
On Monday, the company said it would mobilize around 10,000 responders to prepare for the high amount of outages its customers could face. Similarly, FPL prepared a restoration workforce of 17,000 people to address power outages after the storm.
Thursday morning, 766,984 Duke Energy Florida customers are facing power outages, according to Poweroutage.us. Originally, the company estimated that over a million of its customers would face extended power outages. Around 1,153,288 FPL customers are also without power.
Hurricane Milton tracker
Hurricane Milton spaghetti models
Illustrations include an array of forecast tools and models, and not all are created equal. The hurricane center uses only the top four or five highest-performing models to help make its forecasts.
Restoration efforts following outages
Once power outages begin, restoration efforts will be launched in force wherever and whenever it is safe to do so. But restoration may run into problems left over from Hurricane Helene.
Power restoration will be prioritized to restore power to the largest number of customers as quickly as possible. According to FPL, priorities are given to:
Power plants and damaged lines and substations
Critical facilities such as hospitals, police and fire stations, communication facilities, water treatment plants and transportation providers
Major thoroughfares with supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations and other needed community services.
Smaller groups and local areas
This story has been updated with new information.
Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, follow her on X, formerly Twitter, Instagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz, or email her at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida power outage map tracker: Milton leaves millions in the dark