Nearly half-million customers get power; one-third of Florida waits

Wednesday hundreds of thousands of Florida power customers got their lights turned back on but almost exactly one third of Florida is still waiting.

The latest numbers from the Florida Office of Emergency management show 3.5 million customers still were without power at 3 p.m. Wednesday, representing 33.4 percent of all Florida homes and businesses.

That’s down from nearly 4 million without power early Wednesday morning, and from 5.4 million without power at noon Tuesday.

In Southwest Florida, about 75 percent of the homes and businesses in Collier County and 65 percent in Lee County still were without power at 3 p.m. Wednesday. That’s 185,000 customers in Collier and 287,000 in Lee finishing a third full day without power.

While percentages are lower throughout most of Florida, huge numbers of customers elsewhere face the same problem. In Miami-Dade County 443,000 were without electricity, in Broward County, 314,000, and in Palm Beach, 286,000. That’s 38-39 percent of the customers in each of those counties.

In the Tampa Bay area, 191,000 customers, or 35 percent, still were without power in Pinellas County; 148,000, or 24 percent, in Hillsborough County; 57,000 or 27 percent in Manatee County, and 64,000, or 24 percent in Pasco County.

In Central Florida, 142,000 homes and businesses, 24 percent, remained without electricity at 3 p.m. in Orange County; 129,000 or 45 percent in Volusia County; 121,000 or 39 percent in Brevard County; 73,000 or 35 percent in Seminole County; 46,000 or 26 percent in Lake County, and 16,000, or 11 percent in Osceola County.

In the Jacksonville area, 95,000 customers or 21 percent were without power in Duval County; 43,000 or 33 percent in St. John’s County; and 29,000 or 31 percent in Clay County.

Several low-population counties also still had more than two-thirds of their customers without power Wednesday, including Monroe County, home of the Florida Keys, where 83 percent of homes and businesses were without. Highlands County continue to have the least; 97 percent of the customers there have no power.