Jacob Ogles
Roughly four full days after Hurricane Helene struck Florida’s Big Bend and flooded neighborhoods along the Gulf Coast, nearly 80,000 Floridians remain without power.
A 3 p.m. update from the Florida Public Service Commission shows improvement through the day, but much of the Big Bend remains deeply impacted by the storm.
Most notably, 73.98% of customers in Madison County remain in the dark, more than 8,500 people. That’s actually a worse situation than at 6 a.m. this morning in the county on the Florida-Georgia line. A majority of customers there are on Tri-County Electric Cooperative Power, which reports it still must assess damage before offering a timeline on restoration. Duke Energy customers should have power back there within 24 hours.
That’s the only county where a majority of customers have not seen power restored. But 49.09% of those in Taylor County still need power back, about 6,900 customers. More than 46% in Hamilton County, nearly 3,300 customers, also need electricity. Some 42.46% of Dixie County customers, about 4,500, also await restoration.
About 29.17% of Gilchrist County customers, more than 3,000, and 24.91% of Jefferson County customers, about 2,200, are still out of power. Just over 900 customers in Lafayette County, about 20.46% of customers there, also need service. So do more than 4,000 in Levy County, about 14.65% of customers.
Thousands outside of the hard-hit Big Bend areas also need service, while representing a smaller part of their county populations. More than 8,800 in Alachua County need service. So do almost 16,400 in Pinellas County and more than 3,400 in Pasco County. All the Pinellas and Pasco customers are on Duke Energy.
Earlier today
Days after Hurricane Helene made landfall, nearly 92,000 Floridians remain without power.
A 6 a.m. update from the Florida Public Service Commission reports more than 99% of customers in the state have power, but some hard-hit counties still have more than half of households with the lights out.
In Hamilton County, 74.42% of customers await power restoration, representing nearly 5,300 people still in the dark. In Madison County, 63.18% of customers, nearly 7,300 people, are still out of power. In Taylor County, about 56.55%, more than 7,900 customers, remain without service.
In Dixie County, 44.61% are still out, or more than 4,700 customers. Gilchrist has 33.1% out, about 3,400 total. The more populous Columbia County has 32.05% awaiting electricity, nearly 12,000 people. Jefferson and Lafayette counties have 28.3% and 23.77% of customers in the dark, respectively, with more than 3,500 accounts affected collectively. In Suwannee County, nearly 8,000 are still affected by outages, or 31.82% of customers there.
While those areas felt the direct brunt of Helene’s hurricane force winds, other more populated areas also remain impacted due to the storm’s wide reach across Florida’s west coast.
Nearly 20,000 customers in Pinellas still await service. While that’s just 3.47% of accounts in the peninsular county, that represents the most customers in the dark still of any Florida county almost four days after the impacts of Helene. Alachua County in North Florida still has more than 11,000 without service, about 8.04% of all accounts in the county.
More than 58,000 of those still without power are on one of Florida’s electric co-ops, including more than 18,000 Clay Electric Cooperative customers. The provider said power should be restored to most customers there within 48 hours.
More than 28,000 Duke Energy customers await service, including all those in Pinellas County. More than 2,000 Florida Power & Light Company customers are also still impacted, as are more than 3,200 on municipal service.
