Ryan Nicol
Fewer than 9,600 Tallahassee customers remain without power following recent storms, with work still being done to help residents get back online.
As of the 9 a.m. update Monday from the Public Service Commission, 9,574 city of Tallahassee customers remain without power. That’s around 7.6% of city customers who are powerless three days after the storm struck.
The Talquin Electric Cooperative, which also serves some Leon County customers, has fully restored power there.
The National Weather Service released maps showing multiple tornadoes touching down in Tallahassee, causing severe damage such as blocked roads, destroyed circuits and downed power utility poles.
That has made the power restoration especially difficult, both in the scale of rebuilding and in the difficulty of clearing roads in order to navigate the city.
But workers have made significant progress, as the number of Leon County customers without power has dropped from a high of nearly 89,000 on Friday afternoon immediately following the storms, according to the Public Service Commission. That number remained above 70,000 in Leon County as of Saturday morning, but workers Saturday cut the number by more than half before making more progress Sunday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order following the storm declaring a state of emergency in Baker, Columbia, Gadsden, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Suwannee, Taylor and Wakulla counties.
All of those counties — and other counties not covered by the emergency order — were dealing with power outages in the days after the storm.
But over the weekend, some of those counties began coming fully online. Now, Columbia County — with 193 outages remaining — is the only area without power outside of Tallahassee.
The estimated full restoration time remains greater than three days in Tallahassee, according to estimates reported to the Public Service Commission, due to the ongoing difficulties there. The remaining Columbia County outages should be restored within 24 hours.
