Over 100,000 Florida customers without power due to approaching Hurricane Helene

(Reuters) - More than 100,000 homes and businesses in Florida were without power on Thursday as hurricane Helene looked poised to make landfall in the state's Big Bend region, according to data from PowerOutage.us.

Hurricane Helene churned toward Florida's Panhandle region, bringing the threat of a potentially deadly storm surge to much of the coastline.

Helene was forecast to continue gaining power on its northward path toward the Big Bend region. It was expected to make landfall this evening, possibly as a Category 4 storm with sustained winds in excess of 130 mph (209 kph).

The utility company with the largest number of customers affected was Florida Power & Light Company, which had 88,722 clients without power.

It was followed by Tampa Electric, with 7,080 customers cut off in the state.

Here are the major outages by utility in Florida:

Power Companies Outages

Florida Power & Light Company 88,722

Tampa Electric 7,080

Lee County Electric Coop 4,979

Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK ) 4,641



Withlacoochee River Electric Coop 1,499

Total 106,921

Source: Investing.com