(Corrects number of outages in first paragraph to 300,000 from 300,00 (adds dropped zero))
(Reuters) -Over 300,000 homes and businesses were still without power along the U.S. East Coast from Florida to North Carolina after hurricane Idalia battered the region overnight, according to data from power outage tracker PowerOutage.us.
Hurricane Idalia plowed into the Big Bend region of Florida, where millions of residents had evacuated or hunkered down in anticipation of a dangerous surge of tidal water, but the storm’s power ebbed as it headed toward Georgia.
Florida had the most outages with about 149,705 out now, followed by Georgia with 109,629 out and South Carolina with 25,017 out, PowerOutage.us said.
The utility with the most outages is Georgia Power with around 78,045 customers without power, followed by Duke Energy with 37,329 customers without power in Florida.
Tampa Electric on Wednesday said power has been restored to most of its some 35,000 customers who were impacted.
Ahead of the storm, Tampa Electric secured about 3,000 workers from other utilities, including line crews, tree trimmers and damage assessors.
“The weather impact was not as severe as anticipated, and our crews were able to work through the night to restore customers during the storm,” said Archie Collins, CEO of Tampa Electric.
Here are the major outages by utility in Florida:
Power Companies Outages
Duke Energy 37,329
Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative 28,438
Tri-County Electric Coop 19,612
Central Florida Electric Cooperative 18,890
Clay Electric Coop 18,436
Florida Power and Light Company 9,514
Talquin Electric Cooperative 9,103
City of Tallahassee 6,357
Total Out 149,705
Here are the major outages by utility in Georgia:
Power Companies Outages
Georgia Power 78,045
Satilla REMC 10,778
Excelsior EMC 8,216
Okefenoke REMC 7,801
Total Out 109,629
(Reporting by Brijesh Patel and Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Rahul Paswan and Anjana Anil; Editing by Mark Porter, Bill Berkrot, Josie Kao)
