Factbox-Over 3.2 million Florida customers without power due to Hurricane Milton

(Reuters) -More than 3.2 million homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday, after Hurricane Milton made landfall on the state's west coast hours earlier, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Milton made landfall around 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT) on Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kph) near Siesta Key, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It has since weakened into a Category 2 hurricane, nonetheless still considered extremely dangerous.

The utility with the most customers hit was Florida Power & Light Company, with over one million clients without power, followed by Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK ), which has 771,814 clients without power.

"Customers should be prepared for extended outages. The unprecedented storm's catastrophic conditions and recent heavy rain will likely cause significant damage and restoration challenges," said Florida Power & Light Company.

The company added that it has a restoration workforce of more than 17,000 people and has pre-positioned crews throughout the state.

Over 109,000 customers in Georgia and North Carolina were still without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 200 people across six states, and was the deadliest named storm to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005.

Here are the major outages by utility in Florida:

Power Companies

Outages

Florida Power & Light

Company 1,153,216

Duke Energy

771,814

Tampa Electric

593,603

Lee County Electric

Coop 140,404

Withlacoochee River

Electric Coop 131,803

SECO Energy

94,962

Orlando Utilities

Commission 88,058

Lakeland Electric

86,148

Peace River Electric

Coop 56,399

Clay Electric Coop

35,790

New Smyrna Beach

Utilities 24,814

Leesburg Electric

Department 18,691

Fort Pierce Utilities

Authority 15,567

Kissimmee Utility

Authority 13,939

Glades Electric

Cooperative 10,545

Ocala Electric

Utility 10,419

Total Out

3,258,734

Source: Investing.com