1.6 million Florida accounts still lack power, including more than half of Hillsborough and Pinellas. But gas is coming back.

Image via AP.

Power outages and gas shortages are still presenting impacts to storm-savaged Floridians in the wake of Milton’s marauding path through the state this week.

Progress is being made from one of the greatest disasters in the history of the Sunshine State, with Floridians’ resilience being matched by the work of the stalwart professionals addressing resource and distribution challenges in the wake of not just this storm but Hurricane Helene, which preceded it.

Gov. Ron DeSantis worked to get more than 50,000 linemen in the state and ready to work once Milton exited the east coast.

And as many around the state settle in for a weekend of relative normalcy, others are dealing with proximate impacts of the major hurricane’s onslaught, including grindingly slow electricity restoration.

Though the state is down from more than 4 million accounts out of power in the immediate aftermath of the storm, 1.6 million Floridians are still impacted, including a majority of residential and commercial accounts in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the state.

The preponderance of power outages affect Tampa, St. Petersburg, and their immediate suburbs. More than 380,000 Pinellas County accounts are out as of this writing, which comes out to two out of every three. All but about 2,000 of them are Duke Energy clients.

Meanwhile, more than 53% of Hillsborough’s 708,000+ accounts are still without service Saturday morning, with more than 378,000 of those being Tampa Electric customers.

Manatee and Sarasota Counties, also extremely hard hit by Milton, is also severely challenged in terms of the slow pace of restoration as the weekend begins.

In Manatee, roughly 42% of its more than 260,000 accounts are still out, including more than half of Florida Power and Light customers.

And in FPL dominated Sarasota County, just under 30% of the roughly 300,000 accounts remain disconnected.

Impacts extend to the east coast still, where Volusia’s 86,225 accounts without power are spread among five providers. That number represents 27% of customers, for perspective.

Nearly 20% of accounts are still out in Indian River County as well.

Power outages in these population centers and elsewhere affect gas stations as well, and even as the storm approached, they were out of fuel and Floridians were struggling.

That could reverse in the coming days though, as power comes back and fuel is resupplied.

“Critical power service has been RESTORED to Port Tampa, while new supplies of gasoline will start arriving into Port tomorrow. I expect outages to start declining in the hours ahead, and once the port reopens we’re going to be pretty much seeing improvement every day,” predicts Gas Buddy analyst Patrick DeHaan.

As of Friday night, nearly a third of Florida stations were still out of gas, with one in ten still without power, DeHaan adds.