Kelly Hayes
Tampa Electric (TECO) has restored power to the vast majority of customers affected by Hurricane Ian, but there are still 7,761 households without power in areas of eastern Hillsborough County and Polk County.
The utility company expects to restore most of the remaining outages by Monday night. A small number of customers with more complex or localized damage may take longer to restore, according to an update by Tampa Electric. On Sunday, the company restored power to over 57,000 customers.
“These final days of restoration are largely focused on labor-intensive outages, including several areas with severe damage,” said Archie Collins, president and CEO of Tampa Electric, in a written statement. “These repairs will take some time. Rest assured, we will not stop until every customer is restored.”
Tampa Electric will begin reaching out to the remaining customers tonight and tomorrow and continue to provide updates for those cases.
Since Hurricane Ian hit, about 295,000 of TECO’s more than 810,000 customers were impacted.
Thousands of crew members from across the country are still working around the clock to restore power for those affected by Hurricane Ian. These responders include teams of line-workers, tree trimmers and damage assessors.
This weekend, crew members worked to restore power to residential neighborhoods in harder-hit areas, as well as more complex repairs across the service area.
TECO is also temporarily suspending disconnections for nonpayment as it focuses on Hurricane Ian recovery.
The utility company prepped for the storm, which was previously expected to directly pummel the Tampa Bay area earlier this week, but shifted its path southward.
For TECO customers who are looking to report an outage, you can go here, call 877-588-1010 or text OUT to 27079. Tampa Electric advises residents to stay safe and keep away from downed power lines, and to call immediately to report them at 813-223-0800. The company will be providing more updates on social media channels.
Ian made landfall Wednesday afternoon near Fort Myers at near-Category 5 strength, bringing with it torrential rain, tornadoes and massive storm surges that flooded a large swath of the Gulf Shore.
Search and rescue efforts are now underway.
One comment
Tom
October 3, 2022 at 11:52 am
Yes, I had a family member restored in Tampa Sat. Remarkable work being done, provided for.
Some of the local communities are on cooperatives with out of state energy suppliers.
Today should see a continued increase to access. Great job doing so, it’s never fast enough when you are without.
Comments are closed.