Factbox-Over a million customers without power in Florida from Hurricane Ian

© Reuters. A view of a closed restaurant by the beach ahead of Hurricane Ian, in Fort Myers, Florida, U.S. September 28, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello

(Reuters) – More than 1.3 million homes and businesses were without power in Florida as Hurricane Ian hit the state’s west coast on Wednesday, according to local power companies.

Some utilities have started to restore customers now that the storm has passed southern Florida even though the number of outages continues to increase as the storm heads inland.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Ian was causing catastrophic storm surge, winds and flooding in the Florida Peninsula. The storm was located about 120 miles (190 kilometers) south-southwest of Orlando, Florida, and was packing maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour (225 kph) at 5 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT).

The utility with the most outages so far was Florida Power & Light Co (FPL), a unit of Florida energy company NextEra Energy Inc (NYSE:). FPL has activated its emergency response plan, which includes mobilizing more than 13,000 personnel to support power restoration efforts.

Major outages by utility:

Power Company State/Pro Out Now Customers Served

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NextEra – FPL FL 5,280,000

893,687

Lee County Electric Co-op FL 238,000

177,995

Duke Energy (NYSE:) – Florida FL 1,766,000

159,888

Peace River Electric Co-op FL 55,300

34,332

Emera – Tampa Electric FL 800,000

31,948

Others FL

~30,000

Total Out

~1,328,000

Source: Company web sites, Poweroutage.us