After Hurricane Milton swept through Florida on Wednesday and Thursday, more than three million people are currently without electricity.

As of Thursday morning, the storm remained a Category 1 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, as reported by the National Hurricane Center. It is moving northeast at 18 mph heading toward the Sargasso Sea off Florida’s east coast.

At 6:30 a.m. ET, approximately 3,245,549 customers, mostly in Central Florida, were affected by power outages, based on information from YSL News’s outage tracker.

Highlands County has 59,271 customers without power, and Flagler County has 50,053 customers affected.

In Hillsborough County, every tracked customer—totaling 430,747—is experiencing power loss, making it the hardest hit county in Florida.

Power Outage Overview in Florida

Expected Timeline for Power Restoration

According to Florida Power and Light Company (FPL), residents may “face longer than usual restoration times following the storm.”

“FPL teams will work to restore electricity in intervals between severe weather as long as it is safe to do so,” the company stated in a recent press release.

Prior to the landfall of the storm, residents were advised to prepare for extended power outages.

“As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida’s west coast, Duke Energy Florida is encouraging its customers to get ready for this serious storm and a prolonged power restoration effort that could lead to long-term outages,” stated Duke Energy on their website, serving 8.4 million customers across several states.

On Monday, the utility company announced plans to deploy about 10,000 personnel in anticipation of extensive power outages. Similarly, FPL readied a team of 17,000 workers to address outages after the storm.

As of Thursday morning, 766,984 customers served by Duke Energy Florida are without power, according to Poweroutage.us. Initially, the company projected that over a million customers could experience outages. Additionally, around 1,153,288 customers serviced by FPL are also affected.

Efforts to Restore Power Following Outages

Once outages occur, restoration operations will begin vigorously wherever it’s safe to do so. However, challenges from Hurricane Helene may impede these efforts.

Restoration priorities focus on returning power to the greatest number of customers in the shortest time. According to FPL, their restoration priorities include:

• Power plants, damaged lines, and substations
• Essential services such as hospitals, police and fire stations, communication facilities, water treatment plants, and transportation services
• Main roads where supermarkets, pharmacies, gas stations, and other crucial community services are located
• Smaller groups and less populated areas